Travel industry set to rebound in coming year

Tourist attractions expect more visits with easing of controls on COVID-19

While the domestic tourism market took a heavy hit from the COVID-19 pandemic last year, it is poised to rebound as the outbreak has been successfully contained with a combination of effective measures.

The latest figures from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism show that domestic trips plummeted by 52.1 percent to around 2.88 billion last year.

Tourism-related revenue shrank by 3.5 trillion yuan ($541 billion) to 2.23 trillion yuan in 2020, according to the ministry.

Also, due to strict epidemic control measures, people spent less money on travel in 2020, the ministry said. The average expense for a trip was 774 yuan last year, a year-on-year fall of 18.8 percent.

"The epidemic was spreading very quickly at a time when the whole tourism industry had been blindsided. Tourism has very complex and long industrial chains, so we had to meet challenges when huge numbers of cancellations came," said Chen Gang, chief executive officer of Qunar, an online travel agency.

To curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, the tourism market has made great sacrifices, which brought huge financial losses.