An aerial photo taken on Sept. 16, 2021 shows a lantern fair celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival in Zhouzhuang Township in Kunshan City, East China's Jiangsu Province.Photo:Xinhua

Around 650 million Chinese are expected to go traveling during the seven-day National Day holidays, as people are keen to leave the house after their summer travel plans were disrupted by the Delta variant outbreak in East China's Jiangsu Province, and the current fresh sporadic outbreak in Fujian Province was estimated to be controlled during the holiday. 

During the Golden Week (October 1-7), the total number of people traveling domestically will reach 650 million, a recovery of over 80 percent compared with the same period in 2019, Chinese online travel platform ly.com projected.

It's worth noting that many visitors choose to travel closer to home due to sporadic case spikes. According to a report online travel platform Trip.com sent to the Global Times, bookings for scenic spot tickets via the platform grew over 30 percent year-on-year, with the amount of bookings for nearby tourist sites and hotels accounting for a larger proportion.

Data from travel platform Qunar sent to the Global Times showed that bookings for air tickets for the National Day holidays have been on the rise over the past week, up about 20 percent compared with the week prior to the Mid-Autumn Festival (September 19-21).

Meanwhile, air ticket prices for hot routes have become cheaper as people's bookings for travel change along with the outbreak situation, according to Qunar. For example, the average price for flights between Beijing and Sanya, South China's Hainan Province dropped 35 percent week-on-week.

Besides, red tourism consumption is expected to hit a new high during the Golden Week. According to data from online travel agency Lvmama, Tiananmen Square in Beijing and the Jinggangshan Revolution Museum in East China's Jiangxi Province are among popular travel destinations.

Data from Trip.com showed that the newly-opened Universal Studio Beijing Resort continues to be the most popular tourist site during the upcoming holidays, with bookings for the resort for the first three days of the holiday via the platform already exceeded the amount booked during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Domestic tourism revenue reached 37.15 billion yuan ($575 million) during the Mid-Autumn Festival, recovering to 78.6 percent of the 2019 Mid-Autumn Festival holiday on a comparable basis, data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism showed on Tuesday.

Global Times