The Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued a notice on Feb 3 advising Chinese tourists against scheduling nonessential outbound travel during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday.
It also called on tourists to refrain from visiting domestic destinations with medium and high COVID-19 infection risks and reduce unnecessary trips.
Travelers should also wear masks, wash hands more frequently, avoid gathering, and keep social distancing, it added.
China's annual Spring Festival travel season started on Jan 28 with lowered passenger flow expectations but tightened pandemic containment measures to curb the resurgence of the disease in some parts of the country.
The Spring Festival travel rush, known as the world's largest annual human migration, lasts 40 days from Jan 28 to March 8 this year.
The 40-day travel peak is expected to see around 1.7 billion passenger trips, up about 10 percent year-on-year, but more than 40 percent lower than that of 2019, according to the Ministry of Transport.
To curb the spread of the coronavirus during the holiday period, China has issued a plan to reduce mass gatherings and strengthen pandemic control, with measures such as advocating off-peak travel and encouraging people to stay put during the holiday.
For example, people residing in high-risk areas or those who have traveled to such areas within 14 days are asked not to leave where they are. People living in medium-risk areas or those who have traveled to such areas within 14 days are advised not to travel. Meanwhile, people from low-risk areas are required to present negative nucleic acid tests when traveling. Upon arrival, they are subject to local government health guidelines.
In light of these measures urging people to cancel unnecessary trips, China State Railway Group Co. Ltd., the national railway operator, has lowered its estimate of railway passenger trips from 407 million to 296 million for the period.
The Spring Festival, or the Chinese Lunar New Year, falls on Feb 12 this year.
