Berliner Boersenzeitung - Despite Covid, it's home or bust for China holiday travellers

EUR -
AED 3.993896
AFN 72.852991
ALL 98.24255
AMD 420.905929
ANG 1.960947
AOA 991.671397
ARS 1079.282118
AUD 1.652057
AWG 1.957246
AZN 1.846926
BAM 1.94988
BBD 2.196831
BDT 130.025259
BGN 1.955832
BHD 0.409741
BIF 3147.904053
BMD 1.087359
BND 1.431693
BOB 7.535332
BRL 6.298093
BSD 1.087997
BTN 91.511009
BWP 14.488415
BYN 3.560888
BYR 21312.234691
BZD 2.193202
CAD 1.511924
CDF 3092.448479
CHF 0.939543
CLF 0.037608
CLP 1037.732042
CNY 7.719266
CNH 7.741229
COP 4800.6896
CRC 558.404752
CUC 1.087359
CUP 28.815011
CVE 110.530289
CZK 25.333506
DJF 193.245019
DKK 7.457981
DOP 65.730702
DZD 144.63952
EGP 53.345282
ERN 16.310384
ETB 131.609273
FJD 2.474775
FKP 0.832013
GBP 0.839599
GEL 2.973911
GGP 0.832013
GHS 17.789084
GIP 0.832013
GMD 77.742974
GNF 9383.907106
GTQ 8.406479
GYD 227.834608
HKD 8.45166
HNL 27.25978
HRK 7.490848
HTG 143.185307
HUF 408.145063
IDR 17178.911623
ILS 4.078232
IMP 0.832013
INR 91.505983
IQD 1424.440176
IRR 45783.246635
ISK 148.903211
JEP 0.832013
JMD 171.918078
JOD 0.771043
JPY 165.44929
KES 140.269094
KGS 93.309373
KHR 4430.987743
KMF 492.031196
KPW 978.622776
KRW 1495.237642
KWD 0.333287
KYD 0.906772
KZT 531.655958
LAK 23856.655063
LBP 97427.357908
LKR 318.991581
LRD 208.609712
LSL 19.039377
LTL 3.210688
LVL 0.657733
LYD 5.229955
MAD 10.70719
MDL 19.422571
MGA 5018.161143
MKD 61.586053
MMK 3531.699333
MNT 3694.845616
MOP 8.710995
MRU 43.494145
MUR 49.833341
MVR 16.744658
MWK 1887.108312
MXN 21.86573
MYR 4.761
MZN 69.486158
NAD 19.039896
NGN 1787.389748
NIO 39.987619
NOK 11.964308
NPR 146.417534
NZD 1.821049
OMR 0.418662
PAB 1.088127
PEN 4.09744
PGK 4.359763
PHP 63.5692
PKR 302.122275
PLN 4.357336
PYG 8568.985619
QAR 3.958642
RON 4.975431
RSD 117.031371
RUB 107.647597
RWF 1483.157557
SAR 4.084062
SBD 9.031843
SCR 14.928378
SDG 654.044516
SEK 11.663229
SGD 1.435118
SHP 0.832013
SLE 24.710207
SLL 22801.369244
SOS 620.8821
SRD 37.955351
STD 22506.134126
SVC 9.520098
SYP 2732.022181
SZL 19.039502
THB 36.731166
TJS 11.58804
TMT 3.81663
TND 3.369723
TOP 2.546701
TRY 37.352983
TTD 7.375811
TWD 34.550285
TZS 2925.944714
UAH 45.097205
UGX 3981.911409
USD 1.087359
UYU 45.332377
UZS 13934.505168
VEF 3939014.785334
VES 46.542264
VND 27531.927672
VUV 129.093467
WST 3.045892
XAF 653.989612
XAG 0.032235
XAU 0.0004
XCD 2.938642
XDR 0.817341
XOF 652.963012
XPF 119.331742
YER 271.676051
ZAR 19.039481
ZMK 9787.541457
ZMW 29.187197
ZWL 350.129126
  • RBGPF

    5.4100

    66.41

    +8.15%

  • CMSC

    0.1100

    24.64

    +0.45%

  • CMSD

    0.1103

    24.92

    +0.44%

  • VOD

    -0.0300

    9.32

    -0.32%

  • RYCEF

    0.0200

    7.1

    +0.28%

  • NGG

    0.1900

    64.45

    +0.29%

  • SCS

    0.1100

    12.25

    +0.9%

  • RELX

    -0.0200

    47.06

    -0.04%

  • BCC

    0.0500

    134.26

    +0.04%

  • RIO

    -0.3200

    65.01

    -0.49%

  • JRI

    0.0500

    13.1

    +0.38%

  • BCE

    -2.9800

    29.12

    -10.23%

  • AZN

    0.0100

    71.43

    +0.01%

  • BTI

    0.0400

    35.11

    +0.11%

  • BP

    0.5000

    29.73

    +1.68%

  • GSK

    0.0900

    36.97

    +0.24%

Despite Covid, it's home or bust for China holiday travellers
Despite Covid, it's home or bust for China holiday travellers

Despite Covid, it's home or bust for China holiday travellers

The pandemic prevented Shanghai schoolteacher Chen Hainan from returning to her hometown to reunite with family for the past two Lunar New Year holidays, but not even lingering virus concerns and repeated Covid tests will keep her away this time.

Text size:

Chen, 30, needs to get her nose or throat swabbed a grand total of five times to ensure passage home to eastern Zhejiang province and back.

"I was not planning to go home this year, either. But after thinking how I haven't been back for two years, I decided this year to go through all the difficulty," she said, getting ready to depart at Shanghai's bustling main train station.

Of all the disruptions caused by the pandemic, the inability to return home for New Year has caused perhaps the most widespread heartache in a country that has otherwise kept the virus largely under control.

In normal times, hundreds of millions of people -- migrant workers, students, and just about anyone working away from their hometown -– pack buses, trains and planes early each year in the world's largest annual human migration.

Known in Chinese as the "Spring Festival", the holiday is by far China's most important, often the only chance each year for workers to see husbands, wives, parents or children.

- 'Strong reaction' -

But the pandemic, which first emerged in the city of Wuhan just as the 2020 travel rush was heating up, blighted that year's holiday, and traveller numbers during 2021's iteration were less than half their usual levels due to persistent Covid anxiety.

This year, Chinese authorities are discouraging travel yet again with China on edge over the Omicron variant, and strict pandemic control measures are in place nationwide to help prevent the February 4-20 Beijing Winter Olympics from becoming a super-spreader event.

Some provincial governments are expressly asking residents to stay put, coastal manufacturing zones are offering migrant factory labourers financial inducements not to travel, and a blizzard of required tests and other measures stand as deterrents.

But not everybody is heeding the message.

With the Year of the Tiger dawning on Tuesday, news reports indicate travel bookings have rebounded this year, and Shanghai's train station has pulsated with thousands of departing travellers each day this week.

This poses a dilemma for a government that is always wary of potential social unrest in its massive population and has been forced to strike a balance between safety and the pull of home.

At a regular coronavirus briefing by the National Health Commission on Saturday, officials criticised overzealous enforcement of pandemic measures at the local level.

"Some places still do not allow people from low-risk areas to return to their hometowns, forcing them to pay for centralised quarantine," said Mi Feng, the commission spokesman.

"It is triggering a strong reaction from the public."

The commission told local authorities not to "arbitrarily prohibit people" from returning home, "so that the masses can spend a healthy, happy and peaceful Spring Festival".

- Homesick -

But it will be another homesick holiday for many in Beijing.

Due to the Winter Olympics, citizens of the capital face perhaps the highest pressure not to leave, as well as uncertainty over when they will be allowed back into the tightly controlled city.

"We will stay in Beijing during the holidays because we are afraid of being locked out of the city in case of virus cases in our hometown," said Joanna Feng, an architect originally from Wuhan.

"Of course, grandparents like to see their grandchildren for the New Year, but we will travel after the holidays."

A spokesperson for leading Chinese travel platform Ctrip said last week that company data indicated that "staycations" and short trips were the most popular booking types this year, a far cry from the mammoth flood of humanity to all points of the country seen in normal years.

He didn't return home to Henan province last year and doesn't want to go on another holiday without seeing his beloved grandmother –- or risk a trip anywhere else.

"I'm just going back home (because) there's nowhere else to go."

burs-dma/je/oho

(G.Gruner--BBZ)