Tourists visit Sanfangqixiang (Three Lanes and Seven Alleys), a scenic spot in Fuzhou, southeast China's Fujian Province, Oct. 8, 2020. According to Fujian Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, Fujian received 39.3 million person-times of tourists during the eight-day National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday ending on Thursday, marking a year-on-year increase of 5.5 percent. The province's tourism industry has raked in 34.09 billion yuan (about 5 billion U.S. dollars) in revenue during the holiday, up 10.2 percent from a year earlier.Photo:Xinhua

China will continue the suspension of travel agencies' cross-border group tour services as well as combined services for plane tickets and hotel reservations, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said on Wednesday.

Industry players said they expected the restrictive rules could be lifted in the third quarter of next year, when the pandemic is put under control, or when there is the realization of wide-scale vaccination in the world.

The information was included in a post on the official website of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, which asked local tourism authorities to strengthen prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic, during autumn and winter period.

The ministry said that local authorities should strengthen supervision and guidance of tourism companies that have resumed business, with special attention given to A-level tourist attractions, star-rated hotels, and travel agencies.

Ventilation, cleaning, disinfection and personnel control also need to be strengthened, said the ministry.

"The time for the resumption of cross-border tourism has not come yet, as the overseas pandemic situation is still grave, and risks of a resurgence of the pandemic in the country still exist," an industry player, who's also the general manager of a travel agency engaged in European travel, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

The service is likely to gradually resume as early as the third quarter next year, when a vaccine could be used worldwide, the person said, adding that the key for the service resumption still lies in pandemic contrail.

While a recovery of overseas tourism is still unlikely in the short term, China's tourism sector witnessed a strong recovery in the recent Golden Week holidays, despite strict national COVID-19 prevention measures such as crowd caps and obligatory reservations.

During the combined eight-day Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday season from October 1 to 8, China recorded 637 million domestic tourists, generating revenue of 467 billion yuan ($68.79 billion), according to data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

"We are now transforming and targeting the vast domestic tourism market instead," the person said. 

Global Times