30/04/2020
- Outbound flights from Beijing were 15 times higher on one travel site within half an hour of Beijing relaxing quarantine requirements on the city
- The rebound in bookings spells some hope for online travel providers in China as the country emerges from a pandemic which saw widespread travel restrictions
Passengers arrive from a domestic flight at Beijing Capital Airport on March 27, 2020. Photo: AFP
Within an hour of Beijing
downgrading its emergency response level, relaxing quarantine requirements for some arrivals to the Chinese capital city, travel bookings on some sites surged up to 15 times.
Thirty minutes after the announcement on Wednesday, bookings for outbound flights from Beijing were 15 times higher than before the announcement on Qunar, one of the biggest online travel service providers in China. Searches for travel packages and hotel bookings on the platform also increased three-fold, according to a Qunar report.
On Alibaba Group Holding‘s Fliggy travel platform, bookings for flight and trains heading in and out of Beijing increased 500 per cent and 300 per cent respectively one hour after the announcement, compared to the same time a day ago, according to a Fliggy report. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Bookings for flight and train tickets in Beijing for the upcoming Labour Day long weekend also increased more than 300 per cent and 160 per cent respectively on Chinese group buying site Meituan Dianping on Wednesday after the announcement compared to the day before, while searches for the attractions in the Beijing area on the platform increased almost three times from a week ago, according to Meituan.
“The surge in searches for travel in Beijing was because the lockdown measures in the city were the strictest in the country after work resumed,” said Jiang Xinwei, senior analyst with Analysys. “Consumption among residents was suppressed [during the lockdowns], so there is now a rebound in bookings.”
China’s online travel sites prepare for surge in domestic tourism
The rebound in bookings spells some hope for online travel providers in China as the country gradually emerges from a pandemic which the Chinese government responded to by implementing strict quarantine measures, shutting down tourist attractions and suspending group tours.
Beijing-based consultancy Analysys
estimates that China’s national tourism economy lost at least 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) a day on average during the outbreak, with travel service providers like Qunar and Ctrip overloaded with millions of booking changes as well as cancellation and refund requests.
The relaxation of travel restrictions in and out of Beijing also comes ahead of a
, which starts on Friday and is the first extended public holiday after Lunar New Year in late January.
In November, the Chinese government lengthened the holiday from the original three days to five to stimulate consumption and encourage travelling amid a slowing economy weighed down by the US-China trade war.
Some cities, such as Huzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang province and Kunming in southwestern province Yunnan, have issued travel vouchers to stimulate consumption for the tourist industry, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
Ctrip estimated that there would be more than 86 million domestic tourists during the long weekend – more than double the number of travellers seen during the Ching Ming Festival in April, which recorded 43 million tourists, according to the China Tourism Academy.
However, Jiang said the rebound this week does not mean the Chinese travel industry is out of the red. “The travel industry will recover partially during the public holiday, but this will not be more than 60 per cent [of levels before the pandemic],” he said. “The government needs to do more to signal that travelling is safe and encourage residents to do so.”
Source: SCMP
Posted in 1,500, 15, 2020, according, after, alert, Alibaba, Alibaba Group Holding’s, Analysys, April, arrive, “mini golden week”, Beijing Capital Airport, Beijing, bookings, China, China Tourism Academy, chinese government, Ching Ming Festival, City, Country, Ctrip, domestic flight, downgrades, emergency, emerges, extended, Fliggy, Friday, half an hour, higher, Holiday, hope, Huzhou, January, Kunming, Labour Day, lengthened, level, lockdown measures, lockdowns, long weekend, lunar new year, March, Meituan Dianping, million, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, November, one, online travel providers, original, outbound flights, pandemic, passengers, per cent, public holiday, quarantine requirements, rebound, recorded, relaxing, residents, slowing economy, some sites, south china morning post, southwestern province, spells, stimulate, suppressed, surge, Times, tourists, Travel bookings, travel restrictions, travel site, travel vouchers, Uncategorized, up to, US-China trade war, weighed down, widespread, within, Yunnan, zhejiang province |
Leave a Comment »
19/04/2020
- Faced with a backlash from the West over its handling of the early stages of the pandemic, Beijing has been quietly gaining ground in Asia
- Teams of experts and donations of medical supplies have been largely welcomed by China’s neighbours
Despite facing some criticism from the West, China’s Asian neighbours have welcomed its medical expertise and vital supplies. Photo: Xinhua
While China’s campaign to mend its international image in the wake of its handling of the
coronavirus health crisis has been met with scepticism and even a backlash from the US and its Western allies, Beijing has been quietly gaining ground in Asia.
Teams of experts have been sent to Cambodia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Pakistan and soon to Malaysia, to share their knowledge from the pandemic’s ground zero in central China.
Beijing has also donated or facilitated shipments of medical masks and ventilators to countries in need. And despite some of the equipment failing to meet Western quality standards, or being downright defective, the supplies have been largely welcomed in Asian countries.
China has also held a series of online “special meetings” with its Asian neighbours, most recently on Tuesday when Premier Li Keqiang discussed his country’s experiences in combating the disease and rebooting a stalled economy with the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), Japan and South Korea.
Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang speaks to Asean Plus Three leaders during a virtual summit on Tuesday. Photo: AP
Many Western politicians have publicly questioned Beijing’s role and its subsequent handling of the crisis but Asian leaders – including Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – have been reluctant to blame the Chinese government, while also facing criticism at home for not closing their borders with China soon enough to prevent the spread of the virus.
An official from one Asian country said attention had shifted from the early stages of the outbreak – when disgruntled voices among the public were at their loudest – as people watched the virus continue its deadly spread through their homes and across the world.
“Now everybody just wants to get past the quarantine,” he said. “China has been very helpful to us. It’s also closer to us so it’s easier to get shipments from them. The [medical] supplies keep coming, which is what we need right now.”
The official said also that while the teams of experts sent by Beijing were mainly there to observe and offer advice, the gesture was still appreciated.
Another Asian official said the tardy response by Western governments in handling the outbreak had given China an advantage, despite its initial lack of transparency over the outbreak.
“The West is not doing a better job on this,” he said, adding that his government had taken cues from Beijing on the use of propaganda in shaping public opinion and boosting patriotic sentiment in a time of crisis.
“Because it happened in China first, it has given us time to observe what works in China and adopt [these measures] for our country,” the official said.
Experts in the region said that Beijing’s intensifying campaign of “mask diplomacy” to reverse the damage to its reputation had met with less resistance in Asia.
Why China’s ‘mask diplomacy’ is raising concern in the West
“Over the past two months or so, China, after getting the Covid-19 outbreak under control, has been using a very concerted effort to reshape the narrative, to pre-empt the narrative that China is liable for this global pandemic, that China has to compensate other countries,” said Richard Heydarian, a Manila-based academic and former policy adviser to the Philippine government.
“It doesn’t help that the US is in lockdown with its domestic crisis and that we have someone like President Trump who is more interested in playing the blame game rather than acting like a global leader,” he said.
Shahriman Lockman, a senior analyst with the foreign policy and security studies programme at Malaysia’s Institute of Strategic and International Studies, said that as the US had withdrawn into its own affairs as it struggled to contain the pandemic, China had found Southeast Asia a fertile ground for cultivating an image of itself as a provider.
China’s first-quarter GDP shrinks for the first time since 1976 as coronavirus cripples economy
Beijing’s highly publicised delegations tasking medical equipment and supplies had burnished that reputation, he said, adding that the Chinese government had also “quite successfully shaped general Southeast Asian perceptions of its handling of the pandemic, despite growing evidence that it could have acted more swiftly at the early stages of the outbreak in Wuhan”.
“Its capacity and will to build hospitals from scratch and put hundreds of millions of people on lockdown are being compared to the more indecisive and chaotic responses seen in the West, especially in Britain and the United States,” he said.
Coronavirus droplets may travel further than personal distancing guidelines
Lockman said Southeast Asian countries had also been careful to avoid getting caught in the middle of the deteriorating relationship between Beijing and Washington as the two powers pointed fingers at each other over the origins of the new coronavirus.
“The squabble between China and the United States about the pandemic is precisely what Asean governments would go to great lengths to avoid because it is seen as an expression of Sino-US rivalry,” he said.
“Furthermore, the immense Chinese market is seen as providing an irreplaceable route towards Southeast Asia’s post-pandemic economic recovery.”
Aaron Connelly, a research fellow in Southeast Asian political change and foreign policy with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore, said Asian countries’ dependence on China had made them slow to blame China for the pandemic.
“Anecdotally, it seems to me that most Southeast Asian political and business elites have given Beijing a pass on the initial cover-up of Covid-19, and high marks for the domestic lockdown that followed,” he said.
“This may be motivated reasoning, because these elites are so dependent on Chinese trade and investment, and see little benefit in criticising China.”
China and Vietnam ‘likely to clash again’ as they build maritime militias
The cooperation with its neighbours as they grapple with the coronavirus had not slowed China’s military and research activities in the disputed areas of the
South China Sea – a point of contention that would continue to cloud relations in the region, experts said.
Earlier this month an encounter in the South China Sea with a Chinese coastguard vessel led to the sinking of a fishing boat from Vietnam, which this year assumed chairmanship of Asean.
And in a move that could spark fresh regional concerns, shipping data on Thursday showed a controversial Chinese government survey ship, the Haiyang Dizhi 8, had moved closer to Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone.
The survey ship was embroiled in a months-long stand-off last year with Vietnamese vessels within Hanoi’s exclusive economic zone and was spotted again on Tuesday 158km (98 miles) off the Vietnamese coast.
Source: SCMP
Posted in 10, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 1976, 27, 44, 50%, 54, according, across the world, again, against, April, areas, arriving, ASEAN, Asian, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), ASYMPTOMATIC CASES, at, authorities, avoid, ‘mask diplomacy’, battling, Beijing, Beijing’s, biggest, blame, blame game, borders, Britain, build, burnished, cabinet, cases, cautioning, central, central district, chairmanship, China, China's, China’s National Health Commission, Chinese capital, chinese government, Chinese market, City, clinical, closer, closing, coast, coastguard vesse, coastguard vessel, combating, compensate, confirmed, confirmed cases, considered, contain, contention, control, controversial, coronavirus, coronavirus cases, cough, countries, country’s, COVID-19, COVID-19 outbreak, cripples, crisis, criticism, cross infections, Data, day, deadly spread, death toll, deaths, declines, delegations, despite, destabilising, Disease, disputed areas, districts, domestic, down, earlier, eastern, economic recovery, economically, economy, elsewhere, embroiled, epicentre, epidemic, everybody, exclusive economic zones, experiences, eyes, facing, fall, family gatherings, fever, first time, fishing boat, flare-up, foreign policy and security studies programme, Friday, from, GDP, global leader, global pandemic, Government, Guangzhou, Haiyang Dizhi 8, handling, Hanoi’s, Harbin, health commission, Heilongjiang, high-risk, Home, hospitals, However, hubei province, hundreds, imported, imported infections, including, infected, Institute of Strategic and International Studies, interested, International Institute for Strategic Studies, investigations, irreplaceable, Japan, Japanese Prime Minister, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Jiaozhou, km, last, leaders, local, locally, lockdown, low-risk, lowest, mainland, Mainland China, Major, Malaysia’s, March, medical equipment and supplies, medium-risk, miles, military and research activities, millions, months-long, moved, narrative, new, nine, Northeastern, Notably, now, number, off, Official, officials, on guard, outbreak, patients, People, perceptions, Philippine, playing, political, politicians, Post, post-pandemic, pre-empt, Premier Li Keqiang, present, President Trump, prevent, previous, province, provincial capital, provincial government, publicly, published, punished, quarantine, questioned, quickly, quoted, reached, rebooting, rebound, recent, reluctant, remaining, reported, reporting, reputation, research fellow, reshape, resurgence, role, route, Russia, Saturday, saying, scratch, seen, senior analyst, shandong province, shipping data, showed, shrinks, since, Singapore, sinking, Sino-US rivalry, slow, social media, socially, soon enough, South China Sea, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Southeast Asian political change and foreign policy, southern city, spotted, spread, squabble, stalled, stand-off, State Council, statement, stood, stop, subsequent, Suifenhe, Sunday, surge, survey ship, symptoms, tally, task, test positive, Three, Thursday, Total, towards, transmitted, Transparency, travellers, Tuesday, two, Uncategorized, United States, vice governor, vice mayor, Vietnam, Vietnamese, Vietnamese vessels, virtual summit, Virus, Washington, website, weeks, were, Western, within, Wuhan, year |
Leave a Comment »
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 