Quarterly domestic tourist arrivals in China Q1 2019-Q1 2024

In the first quarter of 2024, approximately 1.42 billion domestic tourist trips were made in China, exceeding the figure by around 203 million from the same period in 2023, i.e. growing by almost 17 percent.

Domestic travel and COVID-19 policies

Since the entire city of Wuhan was locked down during the initial outbreak of the pandemic in late 2019, China continued with stringent pandemic policies to minimize case numbers, implementing mass testing, contact tracing apps, mandatory quarantine, and imposed citywide lockdowns.
This period witnessed a near cessation of international travel, and the annual number of domestic trips declined to around half of what it was before the pandemic. However, with increasing cases and public dissent against the government's restrictive containment measures, China abandoned its zero-COVID policy and began to ease pandemic regulations in December 2022.

Post-pandemic tourism in China

During the post-pandemic recovery, China’s tourism sector showed a robust resurgence. In early 2023, the domestic tourist market has returned to the pre-pandemic levels, reporting a total revenue of over 148 billion yuan. Although China had resumed outbound travel at the beginning of 2023, the share of tourists traveling overseas was still relatively small, related to the fact that the airlines have not yet reinstalled all flights.