IS CHINA BACK TO NORMAL, WITH THE CELEBRATION OF THE GRAND GOLDEN WEEK??

The Golden Week (黄金周), in the People's Republic of China, is the name given to a semi-annual 7-day or 8-day national holiday, implemented in 2000. The "National Day Golden Week" begins around 1 October. If the Mid-Autumn Festival is near National Day, the Golden Week maybe 8 days long. Three or four days of the paid holiday are given, and the surrounding weekends are re-arranged so that workers in Chinese companies always have seven or eight continuous days of holiday.

Started by the government for the PRC's National Day in 1999, these holidays are primarily intended to help expand the domestic tourism market and improve the national standard of living, as well as allowing people to make long-distance family visits. The Golden Weeks are consequently periods of greatly heightened travel activity.

This year it was uncertain to celebrate on this National holiday, but around 500 million Chinese people traveled as if COVID is over. Almost half a billion people in China went on vacation during the Golden Week. Some 11.7 million traveled by train, flight bookings were up to 11% compared with 2019. After all this, the Golden week fails to help Beijing put its best foot forward. China has been able to show a strong recovery from the economic impact of the coronavirus, but consumer spending has lagged behind the manufacturing sector.

The week also reflects how the pandemic has reshaped travel, turning China’s increasingly global tourists back inward. Most years, millions of Chinese go overseas during the holiday, but this year, they have little option but to stay closer to home. The early signs seem to confirm two trends. First, China has returned to near normalcy with remarkable speed. And second, Even so, the ripple effects of the pandemic are hard to shake off.