Yang Changqing has been up and down Huangshan (Yellow Mountains) dozens of times in the past week.
One time, he climbed to the top of the 1,864m (6,115 feet) range – and began to sing on camera. Another time, he got to the centre of a walking bridge and launched into a popular bodybuilding routine to attract online viewers.
But mostly the 37-year-old tour guide resigns himself to just posing in front of empty shops and deserted scenic spots, panning his camera for his viewers to share in the experience from their phones.
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Huangshan Park, the scenic area in China’s southeastern Anhui province around the mountains, had always been a popular tourist destination during the Labour Day holiday long weekend, when entry is free.
Even in 2020, in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, park authorities had to close the attraction after visitors swamped the trails over the May 1 weekend, their numbers well over the daily limit of 20,000.
And in 2021, with the coronavirus seemingly in retreat in China, tourism figures recovered to 93 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
The picture this year could not be more different. As China battles its latest and persistent Covid-19 wave driven by the highly infectious Omicron variant, domestic tourism over the holiday ending Wednesday is expected to take a major hit.
Tour guides have been forced to adapt, some switching careers and others learning new ways to do their job, such as taking their tours online.
Yang says he saw only about 50 tourists a day at the park this week. But he has more than 400,000 fans on Douyin, TikTok’s sister app in…