Passengers wearing face masks following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak sit in a sightseeing bus during a night tour, ahead of the Chinese National Day Golden Week holiday in Beijing, China September 26, 2022.
REUTERS/Florence LoBEIJING, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Travel during China's Golden Week holiday, which begins on Saturday, is set to hit its lowest in years, analysts say, as COVID-19 concerns spur calls for people to avoid travel and keep to their cities, while economic woes damp spending.
If trips this holiday reached half the levels of 2019 and spending over the period reached 30% to 40% of holiday spending before the pandemic, that would amount to a "pretty good" result, he added.
In the past two years, China's Golden Week travel and spending have fallen short of the levels of 2019, which racked up 782 million trips and tourism revenue of 650 billion yuan ($90 billion).
Sanya "is not back", said Shirley, the manager of a luxury store in the city, where travel industry workers despair of the return of Golden Week tourists.