China's travel back to 80% of pre-COVID level reflecting 'recovery in consumer confidence'

While China’s domestic air travel returned to 98 percent of last year’s levels according to data released by ForwardKeys, the nation recently rebounded its travel back to 80 percent of the pre-COVID-19 pandemic level, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) release. CIIE document revealed that the country gained its “post-epidemic feel-good mood” momentum in midst of October 1-8 National Day holidays prior to which Chinese citizens still held on to a “wait-and-see attitude”.

As many as 637 million trips were made, that revealed a promising post coronavirus pandemic recovery as per Chinese government data. Macquarie Group Ltd economists compared the air travel in China with 782 million trips about the same time in 2019, and found the recovery was up by 81 percent during the Autumn Festival period, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism data further proved.

“With no local novel coronavirus infections reported during the holiday, people in the country were already confident that the virus had been basically overcome, which is a boon for China’s domestic tourism industry,” China’s International Import Expo Bureau (CIIE) claimed in an update, hailing the “Golden Week spending”. Further, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism recorded up to 500 billion yuan ($73.65 billion) made in tourism revenue.

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“The performance reflects a strong recovery in consumer confidence,” China’s International Import Expo Bureau bureau said.

Flights averaging to 73.57 percent

CIIE added that the Chinese economy will grow by 3.2 percent in the second quarter from 6.8 percent fall in the first quarter as the nation recovered from the coronavirus’ toll on spending power. According to China’s Tourism Academy, China’s Domestic tourism income was only 28 percent less from the 2019 National Day holidays, last year when the revenue was calculated at 650 billion yuan, according to a Bloomberg tally. Chinese airlines operated 13,059 daily passenger flights averaging to 73.57 percent post-July as per CAAC data indicating strong recovery.

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