Travel industry to pick up

On March 21 and 22, the volume of ticket reservation at some tourist sites surged 25 times compared with the previous week in Hubei, according to Qunar, an online travel agency in China.

As spring approaches, many scenic spots have introduced spring flower tours. During the past three-day Qingming Festival holiday, nearby parks and nature reserves proved to be popular with tourists for an outing.

Hubei's Xingshan county received a total of 65,700 tourists during the holiday. Although it dropped by 30 percent from the previous year, the overall tourism market has seen a gradual recovery. The county has also introduced preferential events to boost tourism and consumption.

However, safety always comes first during this critical period of time. All of the reopened tourist sites in the province have adopted a series of precautionary measures, including online ticket booking, regular disinfection, as well as conducting registration and temperature checks upon entry.

China Securities researcher He Yanqing said the tourism market will probably need a quarter to two quarters to restore operations to pre-epidemic levels.

In light of this, the local government has decided to adjust the use of tourism development fund in 2020 to support small, medium-, and micro-sized tourism enterprises in the province that have suffered heavy economic losses during the epidemic.