Tourism receipts shrank 22.8 per cent from a year ago to 28.7 billion yuan (US$4.1 billion) during last week’s Mid-Autumn Festival, traditionally a period for travelling and family gatherings, according to data from China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The plunge prompted Premier Li Keqiang to call for policies to drive up domestic consumption to keep the economy growing.

The number of Chinese tourists who took to the roads or skies during the Mid-Autumn Festival, from September 10 to 12, fell 16.7 per cent from last year to 73.4 million trips. Very few foreigners have been allowed to visit China, except diplomats and those with urgent matters subject to the most stringent scrutiny, let alone tourists.

The festival fell far short of delivering the “best recovery for short holidays this year”, which Trip.com Group had predicted. The dominant online travel company’s shares have lost around 28 per cent of their value on Nasdaq since Covid-19 was first reported three years ago.

Signs were everywhere that this year’s Mid-Autumn travel period would fizzle out, as China’s looming Communist Party congress – scheduled to start on October 16 – put local authorities on hyperalert to snuff out any sign of outbreak.

With the National Day holiday – dubbed the Golden Week – around the corner, many Chinese consumers are pondering whether they should risk travelling.

Yet China’s travel and tourism sector needs people to start moving.

Three of the country’s largest airlines – Air China, China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines – recently reported their largest quarterly losses since the pandemic started. Trip.com Group reported that its 2021 revenue reached only 56 per cent of 2019’s level, at 20 billion yuan.

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For now, stakeholders in travel and tourism see little light at the end of the tunnel.

“It is still early to tell when the [travel and tourism] sector will fully recover,” Wang Cheng, a Morningstar equity analyst, told the Post. “We do not believe the zero-COVID-19 policy will be abandoned this year.”

“We basically gave up on Mid-Autumn because many cities have elevated their Covid control measures,” said Song Huan, the founder of Hangzhou-based boutique agency Mava Trip. He does not expect Golden Week, October 1 through 7c, to be any better given the government’s determination to stamp out outbreaks.

Chinese consumers have found ways to take breathers despite restrictions, but have reduced their travel radius. As the border remains shut, they travel domestically. When going to a large metropolis or a popular destination would entail elevated risk, they go outdoors in nearby regions.

Xie Sijie, a 55-year-old industrial inspector in eastern city of Ningbo, went camping with his family within his home province of Zhejiang for the mid-autumn holiday, and plans to go to the seaside in a nearby city for the Golden Week.

“We used to go to places that are over 1,000 kilometres away, such as Shandong, Fujian and Tibet,” he said. “But we have to consider Covid policies to avoid unnecessary trouble with recent travels.”

Since 2020, he and his wife have slashed their travel budget – previously 15,000 to 20,000 yuan per year – by two thirds.

Song believes the industry will start recovering after the government concludes its October conclave. “It could gradually happen during the winter holiday after the 20th Party Congress,” he said. “And things could really pick up next summer.”

“In regard to international travel, we have been witnessing positive signs in the past weeks with the shortening of the quarantine on arrival in China,” said Joanne Tang, the founder and CEO of Infinite Luxury Group, a travel agency catering to Chinese high-net-worth-individuals. She cited Beijing cutting quarantine days for international travellers from 14 to seven days in June. “We are getting closer and closer to this happening,” Tang said.

One can perhaps see a glimmer of hope in Hong Kong, where analysts say a tourism recovery may arrive sooner than in mainland China. The special administrative region has reduced hotel quarantine to three days, and China Travel International Investment Hong Kong sees growth from the city, Chairman Jiang Hong said during an earnings call on August 31.

Mainland China’s prospects still hinge on Beijing’s zero-Covid policy.

“I try not to be affected [by the Covid policy] but it’s like throwing eggs at rocks,” he said on September 6 from his home confinement.

Beijing-based Sissi Gao was looking forward to a mid-autumn climbing trip in Aba Prefecture in the northwestern province of Sichuan. Days before departure, a lockdown in Chengdu scuttled the journey, for which she had already set aside around 20,000 yuan to cover professional guides, gear and other expenses.

While these disappointed travellers can save their money for future trips, the situation represents unending bad news for the businesses that have endured losses over the last two years. Morningstar’s Wang predicted early this month that the heavy losses of China’s biggest airlines are set to continue through the second half of the year.

Meanwhile large players in tourism continue to see a gap in recovery between their domestic and overseas businesses.

Mainland residents that the Post spoke to dare not dream about going abroad.

Instead, they delay yearned-for trips for years and, in some cases, end up missing once-in-a-lifetime events. If not for Covid-19, Ningbo resident Xie would have travelled to the US for his daughter’s postgraduate ceremony in Boston in 2021. Now he plans a US trip after retiring in a few years.

Lee is currently avoiding travel altogether after her weeklong quarantine in Hainan.

“Going through every stop from Hainan to Shenzhen has been emotionally draining,” she said. “Plus, my boss wouldn’t forgive me if it happened to me again.”