(Yicai Global) Dec. 14 -- Beijing-related travel inquiries jumped after China’s capital city resumed cross-provincial group tours and flight-and-hotel packages.

Online searches rose 31 percent in the hour following yesterday’s announcement by Beijing’s culture and tourism bureau from the same period a day earlier, according to data from Tongcheng Travel.

Covid-19 is spreading in Beijing, so most tourists are taking a wait-and-see attitude, according to analysts at Tongcheng Research Institute. But the return of domestic group tours and flight-and-hotel packages to the capital has sent a positive sign about a recovery in China's tourism sector.

On Dec. 8, Beijing stopped checking codes on the Jiankangbao mini-program and is no longer requesting 48-hour negative polymerase chain reaction test results from travelers arriving in the city

Interest in cross-provincial travel has increased since China announced the easing of Covid-19 controls on Dec. 7. Bookings made between Dec. 6 and 12 for the Chinese New Year holiday, also known in China as the Spring Festival, nearly tripled compared with the week before, said Zhou Weihong, deputy general manager of Shanghai Spring Tour.

“Spring Tour data shows that the most Spring Festival travel bookings are for Changbai Mountain in northern China, accounting for 80 percent, followed by the southern cities of Sanya, Yangzhou, Xiamen, and Wuxi,” Zhou said.

“Seventy-nine percent of Shanghai residents are choosing to spend Chinese New Year's Eve having a family dinner, and requests for small package tours to neighboring provinces and custom tours have increased significantly,” he added.

But the recent uptick in the number of Covid-19 cases in some areas of China has prompted people to reconsider their travel arrangements, resulting in bookings falling again, according to Tongcheng Travel’s figures.

Editor: Martin Kadiev