(Yicai) Aug. 24 -- The number of people going on holiday and heading to the cinema in China this summer is now back to pre-pandemic levels, as the country’s tourism and movie markets make a strong comeback.

Around 1.3 billion people are expected to take trips in July and August, when most students are on holiday, accounting for just over 20 percent of the year’s total, according to the China Tourism Academy. And the summer box office could reach a record-breaking CNY20 billion (USD2.7 billion).

Tourism this summer will be even better than in 2019, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said on its WeChat account yesterday.

Family holidays and night-time tours are very popular, according to travel platforms Trip.com, Tongcheng Tourism Network Technology and Lvmama.com. There were also a lot of romantic breaks taken on and around the recent Chinese Valentine’s Day, also known as the Qixi Festival.

Rail travel has been high, with around 701 million people journeying by train. An average of 10,444 passenger trains ran each day from July 1 to Aug. 21, a gain of 16 percent from the same period in 2019.

Budget carrier Spring Airlines transported 13.4 million passengers from January to July, a jump of 67 percent from a year ago, operator Spring Tour said. And 289 planes were chartered over the summer, much more than in previous years.

Cinemas are also buzzing. The summer box office had grossed CNY19.4 billion (USD2.6 million) as of 6 p.m. yesterday, smashing the previous record set in the summer of 2019, according to movie ticketing platform Beacon Pro. Some 475 million people flocked to the cinema to watch 32.3 million screenings.

Cinema ticket sales over the summer are likely to reach CNY20 billion this year, said Chen Jin, a data analyst at Beacon Pro.

The summer box office, which normally peaks in late July, got off to a strong start this year with the release of crime suspense film Lost in the Stars during the three-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday in June. This was followed by a number of other blockbusters that kept movie theaters humming.

Lost in the Stars has dominated summer ticket sales, raking in CNY3.5 billion (USD481 million) so far, followed by No More Bets with CNY3 billion, Never Say Never with CNY2.3 billion, Creation of The Gods I with CNY2.2 billion and Chang An with CNY1.8 billion.

Cinemas are expected to continue to do well over the eight-day Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday that falls at the end of September, said Cheng Chaogong, chief researcher at Tongcheng Research Institute. A further uptick in outbound tourism is also anticipated then, Cheng added.

Editor: Kim Taylor