China travel

Traveling may not look the same for years after the coronavirus pandemic, starting with the need to get a “Covid-19 passport” to fly in the future. There are several forms of digital health passes in development, the latest of which is a Travel Pass from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), a trade association based in Canada. The pass would serve as a “digital passport” with testing or vaccination certification for passengers.  The IATA app – which will likely include a global registry of health requirements for travel as well as testing and vaccination centers – is expected to launch at the beginning of next year, the latest effort to ensure safe travel during a global pande

The coronavirus might have curtailed international travel from China, but it hasn’t stopped what the United Nations World Tourism Organization identified as “the leading tourism outbound market in the world both in departure numbers as well as total expenditure” from wanting to explore beyond the nation’s borders.  In lieu of real-life expeditions, they have been making do with tours of popular destinations, including the Palace of Versailles, in France, and London’s British Museum, live-streamed by travel companies. On November 9, Alibaba’s travel platform Fliggy joined forces with the West Japan Railway Company (JR West) to “bring popular tourist attractions in Kyoto online to Chinese neti

Temperature checks have become the new normal in airports, offices and even some residential buildings as authorities rush to contain the spread of the new coronavirus.  (Where did the coronavirus come from? How to prevent infections? Here’s what we’ve learned so far about the coronavirus.) Despite their widespread use, medical and public health experts have said temperature checks are unlikely to detect infected people. Are ‘temperature guns’ reliable and accurate? Handheld, non-contact infrared thermometers, or “temperature guns,” have emerged as a popular device to screen people for fevers during viral outbreaks. The guns can quickly measure surface temperature without touching people’s

As the coronavirus spreads globally, airports and airlines are heightening their screening of passengers coming from mainland China. Airports around the world have enacted temperature screenings for passengers, and face masks at airports have become more common. Major airlines like British Airways and American Airlines have started to suspend flights to and from mainland China.

It is the 2020 Lunar New Year holiday, and 11-year-old Xiaoxiao and her little brother are at home with their grandparents in a remote part of central China. They are anxiously waiting for the Spring Festival reunion dinner when their parents return from their jobs in southern Guangdong province. Like hundreds of millions of rural migrant workers in China, Chen and Liu travel home only once a year. The travel rush over the holiday period, which lasts up to 40 days, is considered the largest annual human migration in the world.

Ahead of the Lunar New Year, many people in China surprised their parents by heading home unannounced, and sharing their heartwarming reunions online.

China’s peak holiday travel season, often billed as the “the world’s biggest annual human migration,” has just kicked off. The season usually begins about two weeks before the Lunar New Year's Day, which falls on January 25 this year, and lasts around six weeks. Also called the Spring Festival, the holiday is the most important time of the year for families to get together, eat huge amounts of food and grill single relatives about their romantic prospects. In order to ease the epic annual travel crunch – a massive 3 billion in total trips, compared to the relatively puny 55 million Americans who traveled last Thanksgiving – the country’s sole railway operator has introduced electronic ticket

The United States sends the most tourists to China, and almost all of them go to Beijing. Tibet is high on many bucket lists, but few Western tourists ever actually visit. China virtually empties of Western tourists during November, December and January. These are some of the takeaways from the third annual report on popular travel destinations in China by The China Guide, a travel agency in Beijing that develops customized tours for travelers from the US, Germany, France, Spain, Britain, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. What immediately stands out from the report – compiled from surveys of 2,300 travelers from across the globe – is that Beijing dominates almost every foreign traveler’s iti

A 28-year-old man in China was ordered to pay $17,200 in damages to budget carrier Lucky Air for throwing coins at one of its planes in the hope of a safe journey last year. A court in Anhui province, in southeastern China, handed down the order in July, but it was only made public recently when the court posted the ruling online. Lu Chao, who was a first-time flier, admitted to throwing the coins at the plane for good luck as he boarded on February 17, 2019. The flight was canceled after airline staff found two 1 yuan coins on the ground near one of the plane’s engines. All passengers had to leave the plane and it was grounded while it underwent safety checks. Lucky Air had to arrange acco

Harbin Ice and Snow World, one of the world’s largest ice and snow theme parks, opened to the public in northeastern China on December 23, 2019. The frozen attraction in Heilongjiang province is linked to the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival which opens on January 5, 2020.