Stewardesses make preparations on flight ZH9127 of Shenzhen Airlines at the Baoan International Airport in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, April 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Liang Xu)
BEIJING, June 5 (Xinhua) -- There was a rise in the number of people looking for air and train tickets from central China's Hubei Province to Beijing after an official announced that the national capital will further lower its emergency response to the novel coronavirus epidemic.
Beijing will lift restrictions on purchase of plane and train tickets for people coming to the capital from Hubei, including those from the provincial capital Wuhan, excluding for medium- and high-risk areas. Beijing has also done away with permits for people entering from Hubei via road and scrapped a 14-day quarantine or concentrated observation after arrival in the capital. Those from Hubei under quarantine or observation in Beijing can be discharged, said Chen Bei, deputy secretary-general of the Beijing municipal government.
People entering Beijing from Wuhan will not need another nucleic acid test if they have a diagnosis result proving they are not infected. However, those without such proof need to undergo nucleic acid test.
Beijing will allow domestic group tours under proper conditions, except for those from medium- and high-risk areas. Inbound and outbound group tours remain suspended.
Within half hour of the announcement, searches for air tickets from Wuhan to Beijing rose nine times compared with the same period Thursday on qunar.com, a leading online travel service operator in China. Statistics from the platform showed that searches for train tickets from Wuhan to Beijing spiked 8.2 times, and those for air travel from other areas in Hubei to the national capital rose 6 times.
Data from Trip.com Group also showed that on Friday, searches for holiday products, air tickets, hotels, car rentals and tourist attractions rose sharply. Searches for Beijing-related travel products were up 300 percent compared with the same period on Thursday. ■