- Gordon Dumoulin
Spring festival travel season is here, though with many last-minute change of plans...
A girl waiting outside a railway station in #Jinan, capital of #Shandong province
on January 16, 2022 (picture Sixthtone)
The 2022 Spring Festival travel season has kicked off yesterday with 1.18 billion passenger trips expected by the Ministry of Transport. Up 35.6 percent from last year, but 20.3 percent lower than that of 2020.
The 40-day travel season, also known as chunyun, is the largest annual travel exodus in China with many people traveling back to their hometowns to be with family during the Lunar New Year (February 1, 2022).
A total of 280 million railway passenger trips are expected during the annual travel rush, which will last from Jan. 17 to Feb. 25 this year, 28.5% from the holiday season last year, according to the China State Railway Group Co., Ltd..
On civil aviation, bookings rose significantly with bookings from Jan. 17 to Feb. 2 already having surpassed the total booking in the whole Spring Festival travel season last year, data from Qunar.com, China's leading online travel platform, showed.
While many family reunion trips will still continue despite recent local COVID-19 outbreaks in different Chinese cities, tourism and leisure travels might be lower than previous expectations due to last-minute decisions by people to cancel their holidays.
The worries for the virus outbreaks along with new entry and exit measures in different COVID-affected cities during coming weeks leads people to stay at home and enjoy the Spring Festival in their vicinity.
Source Xinhua