As a train whizzed through a residential building at Liziba Metro Station in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing last week, local tour guide Xiong was there to live-stream the awe-inspiring engineering feat as part of a virtual tour on Douyin, China’s Tiktok.
, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.How has China’s travel industry been hurt by the coronavirus pandemic, and when will tourism recover? Guides using Chinese video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou depend on product sales during their live streams on top of tips. But very few make decent money.
The industry is still susceptible to pandemic-related setbacks, but the “impact from single province outbreaks is becoming more contained as the national market appears to be more resilient”, the consultants said. “Once there’s an outbreak tourism is paralysed,” said Wu, who no longer sees herself as a guide. “As long as the pandemic does not go away completely, tourism will remain partly paralysed.”