China showed an initial sign of increase in the number of passengers traveling by plane, train, boat, and car, as the country is on its way easing back to normalcy following the two-month-long national quarantine caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
On April 12, the country’s airborne, railway, maritime, and land transport industries ferried in total 551,200 passengers on the day, a meager 0.45% increase compared to the same time last month but down 57.5% year-on-year, per data provided by China’s Ministry of Transport.
Chinese airliners demonstrated more resilience with a better sequential growth of almost 20% compared to the land transport’s puny 2% increase. However, the situation reversed when it comes to year-on-year growth. The aviation sector saw its traffic down by 68%, whereas road transport traffic gained 22% than the same time last year.
Affected by the public health crisis, the Ministry of Transport recorded a 50.3% slip in the total number of travelers during the 40-day-long period near the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday in mid-February, which is usually a popular time for citizens to visit family and friends.
During early April’s QingMing Festival, however, transportation traffic reached the highest level since CNY as Chinese people welcomed the first public holiday since the outbreak and celebrated the decreasing number of infected cases inside the country.
The number of tourism short trips booked for the three-day QingMing bounced by 366%, according to China’s largest online travel agency Trip.com, which launched various deals in partnership with hotels and agencies to offset the huge loss brought by the pandemic. The travel industry is one of the hardest-hit industries during the lockdown.
Reflecting the containment of the coronavirus outbreak, China has also resumed grounded public transportation, including buses, subways, and ride-hailing services, in all cities since early April, ending a two-month-long lockdown in some places.
In terms of maritime travel, 40% of popular routes have resumed operation, said OTA Tongcheng-Elong (HKEX:0780), 36Kr reported.
Disclaimer: 36Kr is KrASIA’s parent company.