Sébastien Le Belzic, edited by Yanis Darras // Photo credit: Liu Xiao / XINHUA / Xinhua via AFP
Since the appearance of Covid-19, the Chinese have not been able to travel as much as they wanted in their country. So, with the lifting of restrictions, hundreds of millions of people are taking the opportunity to rediscover the Middle Kingdom. To the point of forcing the authorities to close the doors of Beijing tourist sites.
A holiday air is blowing in China. The Chinese are taking advantage of their holidays without restrictions linked to Covid-19, a first since 2020. Faced with such a return to freedom, many of them want to take advantage of it. Proof of this is that the authorities are expecting nearly 240 million journeys in China this week, a record. A sign that the Covid epidemic is a thing of the past, certain Beijing tourist sites, such as the Great Wall, the Forbidden City or the Summer Palace, have had to close their doors to tourists, faced with record influence.
But not enough to undermine the motivation of tourists. “Now that all the restrictions are lifted, we really want to go out and have fun”, explains at the microphone of Europe 1, a young tourist. “We looked on the Internet where to go, but there are really a lot of people” in Beijing, she continues.
“We all want to go on a trip”
“People have really relaxed and we feel a lot less nervousness. We all want to go on a trip abroad or visit relatives, which is the case with my girlfriend and myself”, continues another Pekingese.
In China, these May holidays are nicknamed the golden week. It is one of three holiday periods in the country and the first without a mask or PCR test in more than three years. Good news for the tourism industry, which has struggled in recent years with travel up 20% compared to 2019.