A staff member stands by as passenger train No. G9147 traveling from Jinzhou North to Dalian is ready to depart Jinzhou North Railway Station in Jinzhou, northeast China's Liaoning Province on Aug. 3, 2021.(Photo: Xinhua)

The volume of online requests for rail and air ticket refunds has grown 10 times now than June due to the latest Delta variant outbreak in China, data from a Chinese online travel agency showed on Wednesday.

Qunar told the Global Times that the peak-time volume of request for refunds, at 8 am in the morning, exceeded the level during the Spring Festival travel rush at the beginning of 2021, when millions of Chinese were advised to give up their plans to go home to stem spreading of the virus.

China State Railway Group Co, the state-owned railway operator, and about 30 airlines have announced ticket refund policy as COVID-19 infections were reported in a number of cities across China, amid government orders that curb travel to medium- or high-risk areas.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued an urgent circular on Tuesday, asking the nation's tourist spots to beef up their epidemic control and prevention measures in light of the latest outbreak.

The Ministry of Transportation said that cross-city buses, taxis, and ride-sharing services in medium- and high-risk areas will be halted, immediately.

China State Railway Group Co said on Wednesday that it is "taking measures to prevent the virus from spreading on the railway network" in line with the government's virus prevention and control arrangement. 

The company said it has intensified sterilization and suspended ticket sales linking Beijing and 23 medium- or high-risk areas where new COVID-19 infections were found, including the hard-hit cities of Nanjing in East China's Jiangsu Province, Zhengzhou in Central China's Henan Province, and Zhangjiajie in Central China's Hunan Province. 

According to data released by Trip.com, there were 2.5 times more refund inquiries for airline tickets and 1.3 times more inquiries for hotel bookings as of July 31. Some 90 percent of the inquiries for refunds were automatically handled. 

China's domestic tourism market was on track to full recovery, with some industry insiders predicting recovery of 90 percent of the pre-pandemic level during the summer holidays.

Now, the sudden flare-up of the Delta variant has dashed people's hopes. 

Chinese people made 1.871 billion domestic trips in the first half of 2021, up 100.8 percent year-on-year, recovering to 60.9 percent of the same period in 2019, the pre-virus level, data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism showed in July.