Chinese Tourists Would Rather Stay Closer to Home

(Reuters) - Chinese tourists, millions of whom have shunned overseas travel because of the COVID-19 pandemic, are limiting their journeys further to nearby cities and avoiding leaving their provinces.

Recent cases of the novel coronavirus in Beijing and northern China have rekindled public concern, already shaken by calls to avoid non-essential travel during the festive season between Jan. 1 and the start of Lunar New Year in mid-February.

Millions of domestic tourists travel in the week before and after Jan. 1 in a typical year.

Hotel bookings for the three-day New Year weekend had reached 1.8 times of bookings a year earlier as of Dec. 24, but many people were not travelling far, even though plane tickets were nearly 20% cheaper on average, Beijing-based online travel platform Qunar.com said.

"The trend is taking a train to visit cities within the reach of one hour," the company said.

The hottest train tickets are for trips between Chengdu and Chongqing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and Shanghai and Hangzhou, Qunar.com said.

Around 34 million people will travel by train between Dec. 31 and Jan. 3, or 8.5 million people per day, down 6.9% from a year earlier, a China Railway official told reporters on Wednesday.

The Chinese capital has cancelled large-scale events, including the 2021 Beijing Book Fair, and ordered travel agencies not to sell packages for the city during the New Year and Lunar New Year holidays. Many other cities have followed suit.