People shop at a duty-free store in Haikou, capital of south China's Hainan Province, Nov. 10, 2020. (Xinhua/Guo Cheng)

Under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global economy has been severely impacted. However, with China's successful control of the coronavirus, increased hotel bookings at popular tourist sights, and fast-growing online shopping numbers show that Chinese consumers' confidence are gaining - a sign that China's consumption sector is steadily recovering, experts said.

Citing a manager from a hotel near Shanghai's famous Bund, where the annual New Year light show would be held, chinanews.com reported that the rooms that have best views for the show have been sold out for the New Year's Eve, and other rooms are expected to be fully occupied for the same day. 

This is in stark contrast to what happened in the beginning of the year when the coronavirus outbreak happened in China, causing people's panic and fear to travel. 

"China's quick response to the epidemic in January and February guaranteed the normal business operations, which prevented further damage to consumers' income expectation," Cao Heping, an economist at Peking University, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Apart from the tourism sector, e-commerce in China has also witnessed fast growth since the epidemic. According to a study by research institute of China's Ministry of Commerce, the number of users of online shopping increased by 100 million over the first six months this year. The online sales increased 16 percent in the first 10 months this year, according to the study.

"Secondly, the fast growth of China's digital economy this year including online sales and food delivery services have accelerated the consumption sector's recovery," Cao noted.

According to China's National Bureau of Statistics, in January and February, when the coronavirus outbreak was at its peak, the total sales of consuming goods saw a 20.5 percent decrease year-on-year. After seven months, the figure first time turned from negative to positive, as August saw a 0.5 percent increase. 

Since then, the figure has been increasing and the total sales of consumer goods in November reaching 3.95 trillion yuan ($605 billion), a 5 percent increase year-on-year, marking November the fourth month of consumption sector growth.

In addition, the contribution of the consuming goods expense in the third quarter to China's economic growth also increased to 34.9 percent, reflecting that the consumer sector is still the main driver behind China's economic growth, according to the bureau.

Liu Xuezhi, an economist at the Bank of Communications, told the Global Times Wednesday that the 5 percent of increase means that China's consumption sector has recovered about 80 percent, as their estimated growth rate was about 6 percent before the pandemic outbreak.

As the winter crescendos, despite strict epidemic prevention measures, several cities in China have recorded several new COVID-19 cases, which have caused some local authorities to cancel New Year events to prevent the further spread of the virus.

However, experts all agreed that over the long run, the sporadic new cases will not cause a server impact on China's consumption economy as the country has gained valuable experience in fighting against the coronavirus, which has boosted consumers' confidence.

"COVID-19 vaccines are expected to be largely available soon, and the epidemic prevention supplies including face masks are adequate, which provides medical guarantee to prevent the new resurgence of COVID-19 cases," said Liu.