People enjoy a buffet at a shopping mall in Tianjin, northern China, on the first day of the New Year holidays, December 31, 2022. (Xinhua News Agency/Zhao Tzushuo)
BEIJING, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) — Cities across China return to their usual hustle and bustle as restaurants resume indoor dining and shopping malls reopen following China’s implementation of optimized COVID measures is back to
Sha Jingjing, manager of a hot pot restaurant in Beijing’s Chaoyang District, said: “He hosted more than 1,000 indoor diners that day, which gave him more confidence in his business.”
Yang Shulong, chairman of the board of Beijing Yan Restaurant, a luxury restaurant chain with 30 branches in the Chinese capital Beijing, said he felt the same way. “I thought the catering industry would take a long time to recover, but given the current situation, I think this recovery process will definitely accelerate,” he said.
Famous among spicy crayfish lovers and late-night snackers, Guijie is home to many businesses that have reopened 24 hours a day.
Popular tourist destinations such as the resort cities of Sanya and Zhangjiakou have thrived on snow and ice sports, with many hotels fully booked during the three-day New Year holidays and flooded with tourists. . A staff member at Pullman Resort Xishuangbanna in Yunnan said the popular rooms were fully booked a week before his vacation began.
Even packed shopping centers and department stores are showing their economic vitality. A monitoring system developed by Baidu Maps shows that the congestion index of shopping malls in cities such as Chongqing, Xi’an, Beijing and Shenzhen increased significantly on January 1st.
According to the Consumer Market Big Data Laboratory (Shanghai), Shanghai’s total offline consumption reached 12.01 billion yuan (approximately US$1.74 billion) from December 31, 2022 to January 1, 2023 .
Businesses in many cities issue consumption coupons to attract shoppers. In late December, Hohhot in northern China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region issued vouchers worth a total of 38 million yuan, covering consumption in sectors such as retail, catering, home appliances, automobiles and e-commerce.
Local shopping outlets experienced a significant increase in customer flow over the New Year holidays, welcoming over 30,000 people per day. Hohhot Wangfujing Outlet Manager Yang Haiyan said:
Hohhot city commerce official Guo Hongtu said the flow of customers at the city’s shopping malls, supermarkets and restaurants had returned to 70% of normal levels. ■
