People board a train at Zhongzuo South Station in Chongzuo, in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on December 5, 2022. Photo: VCG

China decided to further ease restrictions on inter-provincial travel on Wednesday, announcing that negative nucleic acid test certificates and health codes will no longer be needed. Signs of a consumption recovery have showed up in various sectors, including inter-provincial travel, catering and shopping.

Immediately following the announcement, searches and bookings for flights and train tickets skyrocketed, the Global Times learned. Ticket searches for the impending 2023 Spring Festival hit a three-year high on a number of online travel platforms.

The prior requirement of an immediate nucleic acid test upon arrival was also scrapped, among the 10 new epidemic prevention and control measures announced on Wednesday by the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council, China's cabinet.

The search volume for air tickets increased seven-fold in just a few minutes, with the number of searches for tickets departing during chunyun, or the Spring Festival travel rush, reaching the pre-pandemic levels seen in 2019. Train ticket searches surged fivefold, according to data that travel platform Qunar sent to the Global Times on Wednesday.

The 2023 Spring Festival, the Chinese Lunar New Year, falls on January 22. The 2023 chunyun will run from January 17 to February 25.

On domestic online travel platforms Tongcheng Travel and Trip.com, the number of ticket searches for trips in the first week of chunyun reached the highest level for the first week of the Spring Festival travel rush in the past three years, according to statistics sent to the Global Times.

The number of instant searches for airline tickets rose 438 percent compared with recent days, and the number of searches for train tickets rose 276 percent, according to statistics shared by Tongcheng Travel.

Meanwhile, searches for popular winter travel destinations rose too. On domestic travel services platform Mafengwo, searches for "vacation in Sanya" increased 450 percent from the previous day, and "travel guide for Xishuangbanna" increased 366 percent. Sanya is a tropical resort city in South China's Hainan Province, while Xishuangbanna is a mountain retreat in Southwest China's Yunnan Province.

The 10 new measures issued by the State Council further loosened travel curbs after some regions had already moved to relax local restrictions, Zhang Mingyang, a research fellow from Tongcheng Research Institute, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Many cities and provinces also resumed dine-in services after local governments optimized anti-epidemic measures.

Beijing announced the resumption of dine-in services on Tuesday and the first batch of customers rushed to restaurants. Some restaurants were unable to open on Tuesday as they failed to make sufficient preparations for the sudden policy change.

A manager at Steak House in Beijing's CBD area told the Global Times that the restaurant resumed dining-in service from Wednesday. But a negative nucleic acid test result within 48 hours is needed.

Shopping malls, shops and supermarkets in Shanghai will no longer check negative nucleic acid test results and restaurants resumed dine-in services from Tuesday. Some restaurants still require a negative nucleic acid test result to enter, local news site paper.cn reported.

The landmark Shanghai Disney Resort on Wednesday announced its reopening from Thursday. The resort temporarily closed on November 29.

Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong Province also resumed eating-in services from December 1, after such services were suspended on November 21. From Saturday, all Haidilao stores in Guangzhou resumed in-store dining, having received nearly 60,000 customers over the weekend, jiemian.com reported.

Also on Wednesday, Hainan, the location of the Haikou duty-free shopping complex, the world's largest stand-alone duty-free shop, said it is increasing international air routes for duty-free goods.

The island province is restarting cargo services between its provincial capital city Haikou and Paris, Milan, Zurich, Sydney, Singapore, Hong Kong and other cities. In the next step, Hainan will increase flight frequencies and start new routes to Southeast Asia, Europe and the US.

Consumption is expected to recover significantly from February, along with the recovery of the country's economy, Hu Qimu, deputy secretary general of the digital-real economies integration Forum 50, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

"Despite the significantly eased anti-COVID-19 measures, a consumption rebound will also depend on the recovery of employment, income and consumer confidence," said Hu.