China's Spring Festival travel season to kick off Thursday

BEIJING -- China's 2021 Spring Festival travel season will start on Thursday with lowered expectations of passenger flows as the country tightens measures to curb the COVID-19 resurgence.

The 40-day travel peak is expected to see around 1.7 billion passenger trips, up about 10 percent year on year, but more than 40 percent lower than that of 2019, the Ministry of Transport has said.