Quarterly domestic tourist arrivals in China Q1 2019-Q1 2024
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.