WITH the easing of COVID-19 restrictions in parts of the country, interprovincial travel is expected to see an uptick during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday. Destinations in western China are topping the popularity rankings, according to industry reports. A report by online travel agency Ctrip says that the transaction value of interprovincial group tour bookings through the platform for the three-day break, which is to begin June 3, is expected to exceed that for the three-day Tomb Sweeping Day holiday in April, reported gmw.cn, the official website of Beijing-based Guangming Daily. One of the reasons behind the rebound is the resumption of interprovincial tours in regions including Gansu and Shandong provinces, according to the website. Four of the five most popular Dragon Boat Festival destinations for interprovincial group tours, as rated by Ctrip on May 20, were located in western China. They were the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Sichuan, Yunnan provinces and the Tibet Autonomous Region. The camping craze that took the country by storm in spring is set to continue. Figures from online travel platform Qunar showed that bookings for camping trips climbed by more than 40 percent year-on-year, according to ctnews.com.cn, a website run by Beijing-based China Tourism News. Bookings for domestic air tickets for the holiday via Qunar grew by nearly 30 percent month-on-month, Securities Daily reported last Monday. “Since the Labor Day holiday, the passenger air transport market has gradually picked up,” Lan Xiang, head of the Qunar Big Data Research Institute said. “The number of daily passenger departures went up by 30 percent compared with that before the Labor Day holiday. Civil aviation could expect to see a turning point around the Dragon Boat Festival holiday,” Lan added. (China Daily) | 