White Rat’s streak of bad luck
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White Rat’s streak of bad luck

China celebrated its most important holiday in an oppressiveness - on January 25, the first day of the Lunar New Year - the Spring Festival, over 40 people died from the deadly respiratory virus and 1,300 persons infected with this virus were detected. The alarm rises every day bringing new terrifying figures - according to the PRC authorities, on Monday, January 27, the death toll mounted to 80, the number of infected people was 2,794.

Holidays throughout the country have been canceled and people in China are advised not to leave their homes. China has undertaken large-scale quarantine measures in Wuhan, a metropolis with a population of 11 mn people, and in a dozen other cities in the Hubei Province, from where the disease began to spread. Transport bans and other measures in the affected cities cover a staggering 41 mn people. However, despite this, the virus spread throughout the Middle Kingdom, and beyond. Cases have already been reported in several other countries, such as the United States, France, Singapore and Australia.

On Saturday, when everyone was supposed to celebrate the Lunar New Year, people stood in line at pharmacies to buy masks sold by the employees wearing protective outerwear suits and surgical gloves, and Xi Jinping said in his speech that China was faced with a ‘difficult situation’.

Under ordinary conditions, the oriental Lunar New Year is the most blissful time and bright event in the calendar of the China’s tourism industry. The Chinese New Year is the occasion for Chinese families to gather for the annual reunion dinner, it accounts for the high domestic tourist season and trips to hometowns and visiting friends, so each year, the world's largest population migration takes place here during just one holiday week. Its scale is astounding: while during the Christmas and New Year holidays, for example, ‘just’ 116 mn Americans travel, the Chinese citizens make about 3 bn trips within their main holiday week of the year.

During the 40-day official tourist season, known as Chunyun (‘Spring Migration Festival’, usually starting 15 days before the Lunar New Year, this year from January 10 to February 18), China's railways expected 440 mn passengers. The airports expected 79 mn passengers and were ready to provide over 17,000 flights per day, which is 13% more than in 2019.

But the outbreak of a new coronavirus threatening to grow into an epidemic, forced potential travelers to stay at home. The Chinese government, in an effort to avoid a recurrence of the SARS epidemic of 2002 and 2003 that claimed the lives of over 8,000 people around the world, closed the air communication with Wuhan, the epicenter of a dangerous disease, and canceled hundreds of flights. The airlines China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines and Air China had to cancel flights to Wuhan and back and fully refund the tickets.

The losses of the tourism industry have not yet been evaluated but, according to experts, they will be just horrible. Last year, according to the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism, tourism revenue hit 513.9 bn yuan ($78 bn) during the Spring festival week. More than 40% of tourists visited museums and galleries, while more than one in three attended various cultural performances.

This time, everything is different. Many of the same attractions are closed, performances were cancelled. Shanghai Disneyland Park that was so full last Lunar New Year that it had to stop selling tickets closed its doors from January 25. However, the Park had undergone a Year of the Rat-themed makeover for a four-week event closing Feb. 2, with Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse given starring roles.

In Beijing, the iconic Forbidden City is also closed to visitors, all over the country, temples have been shuttered and public transport systems suspended.

The depth of the crisis - and it’s duration - are still unclear making it difficult to assess the scale of the losses. However, during the SARS epidemic in 2003, the spending of domestic tourists in China declined after a decade of sharp increase, while the value of travel companies fell by 50%.

More than 16 years later, an equivalent outbreak would have a far greater effect on the country’s economy that has shifted heavily toward services, including tourism, to fuel the country’s growth. Tourism revenue has more than quadrupled since 2003, shooting from $90 bn to $430 bn.

And now it is difficult to predict how the ‘Chinese disease’ will affect the whole world. According to estimates by the Chinese Academy of Tourism and the online travel agency Ctrip.com International Ltd., during a seven-day vacation in 2019, about 7 mn Chinese went on vacation abroad, more than the entire population of Denmark. Some infected Chinese tourists have already been detected abroad, for example, in Singapore, where a Chinese grandmother with two grandchildren brought the virus. Thailand, Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam are the most attractive winter destinations for the Chinese. What country will be the next to suffer?

# China
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