Mainland Chinese hotels’ hopes of Lunar New Year boom dashed by rising omicron cases
- Bookings for hotel rooms during the holiday ‘a far cry’ from business during Lunar New Year in 2019, Trip.com says
- Remains to be seen whether hotels will report a year-on-year rise during holiday, JLL analyst says
Just three months ago, nearly 10,000 star-rated hotels across the country were expecting a jackpot during the week-long holiday when demand for travel peaks – hotel room prices can surge by more than tenfold as millions of tourists flock to scenic spots and places of interest.
But a recent report by Trip.com, China’s largest online travel agency, said that bookings for hotel rooms for the seven-day period that started on Monday remained “a far cry” from business during Lunar New Year in 2019.
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“Given the recent disease outbreak in several regions, cancellations of bookings were expected to have jumped this year,” Trip.com said. “It is an irreversible trend that more cancellations will take place due to rising infections.”
China’s tourism sector, with a market size of about US$1 trillion, was once an important driver of economic growth. The industry also employs at least 30 million people.
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In 2019, about 415 million Chinese people took trips during the holiday. Their number trickled to near zero in 2020, when the coronavirus outbreak resulted in strict lockdowns nationwide. Last year, the domestic travel industry served 256 million tourists during the holiday.
