China expects trip surge during Spring Festival travel season

BEIJING, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- China's 2022 Spring Festival travel season is expected to see 1.18 billion passenger trips, up 35.6 percent year on year, but 20.3 percent lower than that of 2020, the Ministry of Transport has said.

The 40-day travel season, also known as chunyun, kicked off Monday and many people will travel to reunite with their families for the Lunar New Year, or the Spring Festival, which falls on Feb. 1 this year.

A total of 280 million railway passenger trips are expected during the annual travel rush, which will last from Jan. 17 to Feb. 25 this year, up 28.5 percent from the holiday season last year, according to the China State Railway Group Co., Ltd.

On civil aviation, bookings rose significantly and the bookings from Jan. 17 to Feb. 2 have surpassed the total booking in the whole Spring Festival travel season last year, data from Qunar.com, China's leading online travel platform, showed.

The railway stations and airports have stepped up efforts to guard against COVID-19, including facilitating contactless service and increasing disinfection and temperature checks.