Hundreds of millions of people are expected to flock to China despite the risks of new COVID-19 outbreaks to celebrate the National Day holiday. This holiday marks one of China’s busiest travel periods, with people coming in from all over the country and abroad to celebrate the eight-day Mid-Autumn Festival break. This will mark China’s first celebration of a major holiday since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak. The “Golden Week” festival will test China’s ability to contain the virus and the effectiveness of precautionary measures set in place, while also providing its economy with an eagerly awaited tourism boost predicted to aid in its economic recovery following lockdown measures.
According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, nearly 782 million domestic trips were made during the holiday last year. The travel and holiday festivities brought in roughly $95 billion in tourism revenue. This year, 500 million trips are expected to be made. The scale of the movement during such a pivotal time in the pandemic draws a stark comparison between other parts of the world, where the daily death toll is still very high and infections are rampant.
