Holidays closer to home popular for New Year

Hotels close to home have emerged as an alternative getaway for Chinese travelers for the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday from Jan 31 to Feb 6, with family-friendly hotels being the most popular option.

On Jan 13, a resident surnamed Wang from the city of Wuhan in Hubei province, booked a villa at the local Huabohui Holiday Villa Homestay to celebrate Lunar New Year in the Huabohui scenic area where the villa is located.

"I chose to stay in a hotel during the holiday because it's not only a trendy thing to do, but also because it provides convenience," Wang told Hubei Daily. "Hotels offer good services, and I don't need to worry about what to eat or where to sleep. All I need to do is hang out with friends and have fun."

A staff member with the holiday told Hubei Daily that many regions across the country have been calling on people to stay put during the Lunar New Year holiday to help contain COVID-19.

A lot of people who want a change of scenery have chosen to get out of the city and spend the holiday at a hotel in the suburbs.

"All the room types we have are selling well for the holiday, and many have been booked out well in advance," the staff member said.

According to online travel portal TravelGo, the number of short-distance trips in major city clusters including the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta are set to witness a notable increase, China National Radio reported on Wednesday.

Online travel agency Qunar, on Jan 13, reported a near-threefold increase in hotel bookings for the holiday compared with that in 2021. The numbers were also 50 percent higher than pre-COVID-19 levels, Beijing Youth Daily reported on Jan 16.

As of Thursday, nearly 60 percent of the hotel bookings for the holiday made through travel-booking platform Ctrip were for hotels within the users' own provinces. The most popular hotel types were family-friendly hotels, hotels with hot springs and urban resorts, according to a Beijing Daily report.

"Because of the pandemic, many families in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu have chosen to go to a hotel or homestay in local suburbs," an executive with online travel agency Qunar was quoted as saying by Henan Business Daily.

"One reason is that hotels and homestays have entertainment facilities such as swimming pools and hot springs. Another reason is that young holidaymakers can be spared the trouble of making the Lunar New Year's Eve dinner," the executive explained.

Amid sporadic COVID-19 flareups in parts of the country, preventing the spread of the disease and protecting consumers and employees remain the top priorities of tourism businesses, Zhou Weihong, deputy general manager of Spring Tour, the travel arm of Shanghai-based Spring Group, told Beijing-based Economic Information Daily.

She said although offering these "mini vacations" is a "self-help measure" tourism businesses have been using to cope with pandemic-induced challenges, it's also a result of the increased sophistication and transparency of the tourism industry, improved urban management and the integration of the tourism and culture sectors.