The Ministry of Culture and Tourism released a notice in late January 2020 requiring all travel agencies to suspend group travel packages. Outbound and inbound tourism were also suspended.
The industry soon plunged. Data from the ministry shows that in the first quarter of 2020, domestic trips dropped by 83.4 percent to around 295 million.
“When the epidemic put people’s health in peril, travel agencies and all the tourism insiders suspended our services in response to the nation’s call. Actually, so far, the side effects brought by the epidemic still exist,”…