China’s domestic tourism market plunged in the third quarter, setting back the recovery achieved in the first half of the year as intermittent coronavirus outbreaks put a halt to interprovincial travel.

The number of domestic trips in the third quarter fell by 18.3 per cent compared with the same period last year, deviating from the encouraging 247.1 per cent and 33 per cent growth in the first and second quarters respectively, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Due to the strong performance in the first two quarters of the year, the total number of domestic trips taken in the January-September period rose by 39.1 per cent, year on year, to 2.69 billion.

“It’d be a pretty optimistic prediction if the upcoming two months can reach the same performance as last year,” said Wu Liyun, a tourism professor at Beijing International Studies University.