China’s domestic travel market continues to show a strong recovery in the first half of 2021.
According to a tourism sample survey conducted by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 1.87 billion domestic trips were made in the first half of 2021. This marks an increase of 100.8% over the same period last year and a recovery to 60.9% of the pre-COVID level in 2019.
The total number of tourist trips by urban-dwellers grew by 91.5% to 1.308 billion, while rural residents made 563 million trips, an increase of 126.1%.
Total domestic tourism consumption reached 1.63 trillion RMB ($252 billion), a year-on-year rise of 157.9%. On average, one person spent 872.27 RMB per trip.
The growth in domestic travel in the first half of the year has been due to the effective containment of COVID-19 and the public confidence in the government’s handling of the pandemic. However, new outbreaks could set back the industry’s recovery. Nanjing has seen 215 local COVID-19 cases recorded between 20 July and 2 August. The city’s authorities have rolled out mass testing of millions of people and imposed travel restrictions.
Read more about China’s tourism industry:
