Inbound organized tours resume as city clears residential complex as low risk

Inter-provincial group tours and airline + accommodation packages have resumed in the city as a medium-risk residential complex in the Pudong New Area was designated as low risk at midnight on Monday, city cultural and tourism authorities announced Tuesday.

The services are allowed to resume only when the city has no medium-risk areas, according to Shanghai Administration of Culture and Tourism.

The suspension was imposed in the city on August 6.

Group tours to medium-and-high-risk regions are still banned.

City tourism operators are prohibited from receiving tour groups from medium-and-high-risk regions.

Shanghai authorities have ordered stronger and stricter measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 after new locally transmitted cases were reported in many Chinese cities.

Cultural and tourist venues across the city should impose strict reservation, registration, temperature controls and health QR code checks, and control visitor numbers, the administration said.

Authorities have stepped up inspections at cultural and tourist venues, including theaters, entertainment areas, hotels, Internet cafes and scenic spots.

Shanghai Spring Tour said on Tuesday night that the booking number of its tour products on Tuesday had recovered to 66 percent of that in early July before the latest COVID-19 outbreak starting from Nanjing.

Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan provinces were the most popular destinations for group tours based it said.

The suspension delivered a heavy blow to the summer tourism market, and travel agencies had to increase the supply of local tourism itineraries such as walking tours and hotel packages, said Zhou Weihong, deputy general manager of Shanghai Spring Tour.

Online travel operator Tongcheng-Elong said searches of tourist attractions and hotels in Shanghai and railway tickets to Shanghai surged by five times on Tuesday after the resumption, compared with the same period last year.

It said outdoor attractions such as big resorts on the city's outskirts, zoos, botanical gardens and mountains are more popular than indoor tourism venues this summer.