More people in China are staying closer to home during this week's Lunar New Year holiday as a newly identified virus and financial pressures push more to dial back travel plans.
The movement of hundreds of millions of people across China and outside the country each year during the Spring Festival--either to visit family or, increasingly, to take a vacation--is commonly described as the world's largest annual human migration.
But some say they are reconsidering their plans amid growing concerns and broad domestic media coverage of the outbreak of the coronavirus, part of a class of pathogens that cause a range of respiratory illness.
As the virus spreads nationwide, travelers worry about unwanted exposure as they crisscross the country in packed trains and planes. There has been human-to-human transmission of the virus, one of China's best-known epidemiology experts told a state broadcaster Monday.
Before the outbreak, China's largest travel platform, Ctrip.com, a unit of Trip.com Group Ltd., estimated that Chinese would take roughly 450 million trips within China for the Lunar New Year between Jan. 24 and Jan. 30, an 8.4% increase from last year.
But as economic growth slows in China, travel out of the country decelerated last year and will continue to slow, a UBS Securities survey of Chinese travelers in October found.
While Chinese authorities aren't urging travelers to stay home because of the virus, the Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention issued a statement Monday warning potentially vulnerable people to avoid crowded public places and wear a face mask to reduce their risk of exposure.
The virus originated in Wuhan, a large city in central China, but authorities reported on Monday new confirmed and suspected cases in Beijing in the north, Shanghai in the east and in the southern province of Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong.
As of Monday, 218 cases had been confirmed and three people had been killed by the virus, according to Chinese state media and health authorities.
Lynn Lin, a 34-year-old health-care worker based in southern China, said she had planned to spend the long holiday in Beijing with her husband and 5-year-old son. But she canceled the trip at the last minute after learning that cases of the virus had reached the capital.
"I cannot risk the safety of my whole family, especially the kid," Ms. Lin said.
Passengers wearing masks are seen at the waiting area for a train to Wuhan at the Beijing West Railway Station on Monday, ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year.
Ms. Lin said she and her husband had booked their tickets almost two months ago at a cost of 10,000 yuan ($1,456) and can't get a refund. They also had to forfeit another 1,200 yuan in hotel deposits.
She recalled her experience when the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, swept across China in late 2002 and early 2003. That viral respiratory illness, which was caused by another strain of coronavirus, spread world-wide within a few months and overlapped with the Spring Festival travel season, ultimately killing around 800 people, mostly in mainland China and Hong Kong.
"I am afraid it could turn out to be another SARS, even though it is not as severe and fatal as SARS so far," Ms. Lin said.
Beyond China's borders, the coronavirus has infected travelers in Japan, South Korea and Thailand--three of the most popular destinations for Lunar New Year travelers. All of them had recently traveled through Wuhan. Airports in neighboring countries were expanding the body-temperature monitoring of arrivals.
Travel destinations around the world rely increasingly on Chinese tourism dollars, particularly during the Lunar New Year. China's domestic economy, too, counts on the millions of Chinese who return to their hometowns or spend the annual holiday traveling to domestic tourist sites.
China's economy grew 6.1% last year, the lowest level in nearly three decades, official data showed last week--weighing on consumer spending.
UBS expects the year-over-year increase in Chinese outbound travel to have slowed to 12% in 2019 from 15% a year earlier, and then to decelerate to an average of 8% over this year and 2021.
"It is very difficult for the Chinese tourism sector because of the Chinese economy," said Chen Xin, China tourism analyst at UBS Securities. "Most of the Chinese outbound travelers are preferring to stay in Asia."
Zhou Yongxiang, a 29-year-old manager at a Guangdong-based toy company, said he had planned to spend 10-12 days with his wife in Italy, France and Germany during the Lunar New Year holiday, but canceled this month. His factory has been feeling more economic pressure over the past year, he said, and the yuan has weakened against the euro, making his trip to Europe more costly.
"We don't want to spend some 40,000 to 50,000 yuan just to throw ourselves into a crowd of tourists, five or six meters away from the tiny Mona Lisa and seeing nothing. It's just a waste of money," he said.
Raffaele Huang contributed to this article.
People walk outside Beijing Railway Station during the annual Spring Festival travel rush ahead of the Lunar New Year. photos by Reuters
