Some benefits of this Covid-19 recovery are detailed in a report by Shanghai-based research house China Skinny. It estimated that 637 million trips were made over the Golden Week, which was 81% of the trips made at the same time last year. Many hotel brands in the luxury hospitality sector are back to pre-Covid-19 levels of occupancy, helped by discount pricing, although consumers did not spend as much, with an estimated 28% decline.
The Golden Week holiday in China has shown what economic recovery looks like post-Covid-19 when there are effective track-and-trace systems in place. A colleague in Beijing, who had just been to a packed cinema to watch a film without any reservations about Covid-19, observed that he was just one of the more-than-99 million movie tickets sold during the holiday, making it the second highest level of sales for the National Day holiday.
The film, My People, My Homeland, topped the takings table by grossing US$280 million ($380 million) for the week. Media pictures of crowds on the Great Wall near Beijing further support the notion of a safe economic recovery. The city-wide rapid testing in Qingdao explains why people have such confidence.
