On a bright morning on July 20, the panda research base recorded a flurry of activity that had been absent for months since the pandemic broke out. At 7:50 am, tourists from across the world stood in an orderly line donning masks and patiently awaited their turn to catch a glimpse of the elusive giant panda.

On July 20, tourists from all over the country put on masks and entered the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. （Photo/ Li Xiangyu）

On July 14, soon after the news of the resumption of cross provincial group tourism was released, a spike in queries related to holidays, hotels and flights was registered on Ctrip platform while a whopping 500% increase was recorded in search for group tours and free travel. On Lvmama platform, a two-hour real-time search volume of related travel activities such as group tours and free travel showed an increase of more than three times.

"Natural landscapes are more popular than artificial ones,” the director of Lvmama said that after the epidemic, products for leisure and relaxation have become the first choice for many tourists. Seaside vacation and relaxation, mountain sightseeing and leisure are more suitable for tourists' needs now. Tourist destinations with suitable climate conditions and good scenery are more popular now. Therefore, Hainan, Sichuan, Yunnan and the northwest ring road have emerged as popular destinations for tourists to book.

On July 20, tourists from all over the country put on masks and entered the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. （Photo/ Li Xiangyu）

On July 15, Sichuan took the lead in announcing the resumption of crossing provincial group tours and launched dozens of travel routes and various performing arts activities, including family travel, self driving tour, research tour, etc. Qunar.com followed suit, roping in more than 4,300 holiday products in Sichuan, and the total category search volume of Chengdu as a destination increased by 310% month-on-month. At present, major scenic spots in Sichuan have attracted tens of thousands of tourists from outside the province and are adhering to prevention and control measures related to booking and capping visitors numbers at 50% of their capacity.

Tourists watch giant panda (Sichuan Online)

According to data from Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, since Sichuan resumed the crossing provincial team tour on July 15, the base has received 1,178 cross provincial team tourists in five days, an increase of about 90% compared with the five days before the resumption. Just in the past weekend, the base received a peak of 22,551 tourists. According to 2019 data, Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding had received 8,945,713 people that year, making it the giant panda breeding research base with the largest tourist flow in China.

Tourists from all over the country visit Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding on July 20. （Photo / Li Xiangyu）

Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding is a world famous giant panda ex situ conservation base, scientific research and breeding base, public education base and education tourism base, covering an area of 1 square kilometer. With its humble beginnings as a rescue centre for six disabled giant pandas, the base has today mastered the world's leading core technology of scientific research and breeding of giant pandas through continuous scientific and technological innovation. By the end of 2019, the number of captive giant pandas in the base reached 206, touching the largest artificial breeding population of captive giant pandas in the world.(By Edina Liang)