The number of bookings for May Day holiday trips as of Thursday had overtaken that recorded in 2019….reports Asian Lite News
China will witness a boom in outbound tourism during the upcoming May Day holiday in the wake of the country adjusting its Covid-19 response, a newspaper report said on Tuesday.
The tourism industry will continue to surge as people show a strong desire to travel during the holiday, which will start on April 29 and end on May 3 this year, Xinhua news agency quoted the China Daily as saying in the report.
The report by Tuniu, a Chinese travel portal, said that destinations including Thailand, New Zealand and the Maldives remain popular choices for Chinese travellers, adding that some destinations in Africa and Europe, such as Egypt and France, may see increased visits with improved airline capacities thanks to optimised Covid-19 management policies, according to the newspaper.
“Suppressed travelling desire will be unleashed at the May Day break, with both domestic and overseas destinations benefiting from the huge travel and consumption demand,” Fang Zexi, an analyst from the country’s major online travel agency Trip.com Group, was quoted as saying.
According to the group, the number of bookings for May Day holiday trips as of Thursday had overtaken that recorded in 2019.
The number is up sevenfold compared with the same period last year.
As of last week, overseas bookings on Trip.com had increased by 18-fold from a year ago, the newspaper added.
Meanwhile, global watchdog Freedom House has released its Freedom in the World Index for 2023 which ranks Tibet as the world’s least free country, Tibet Press reported.
Freedom House, a global watchdog of human freedoms around the world released its report on March 9 titled “Freedom in the World 2023 Report. In the report, Freedom House ranked Tibet as the “World’s least-free country” along with South Sudan and Syria, as per the news report. The report has been successively released for the third year after Freedom House reports in 2021 and 2022 ranked Tibet at the bottom of a community of nations. Freedom House in its report observed that both Chinese and Tibetans living in Tibet lacked basic rights. However, the Chinese authorities are rigorous in suppressing any signs of dissent among Tibetans.
Meanwhile, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in its Third Periodic Review report on March 6 noted that numerous issues related to the human rights of the Tibetan people need serious and urgent attention from the international community.
Every step taken by the CPC to Sinicize Tibet is being monitored closely by the rest of the world. However, what matters is the degree to which action is taken to stem the onslaught against Tibetan culture and identity, according to the news report.
The CCP’s attempts to sinicize Tibetans have taken one step ahead with the inauguration of a `Chinese Nation Community Consciousness Building Research Center’ in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) to promote “national consciousness” Tibet Press reported citing Tibet Rights Collective (TRC).
Citing state media, the report said that the centre will carry out research on how to promote “community consciousness” among Tibetans and focus on promoting the Chinese government’s policies in the region. As per the news report, Tibetan Autonomous Region aims to promote national consciousness, citizen consciousness and rule of law consciousness, mainly to Tibetan religious figures to have control over their thoughts and beliefs.