Travel agencies banking on tickets to ride

Enviable position

Neither Lei nor Dai, the guide at Mount Putuo, has made good money during the recent gloomy months.

However, the fact that they have stayed in business is the envy of many peers, some of whom were forced to go down a completely different path in the hope the sector would come back to life.

Zhang Shuxiang, who runs homestays and a farmhouse entertainment business in Lieshen, a village in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, found the outbreak devastating because it kept holidaymakers away.

For the past five years, the father of two has made a steady living running a hostel in the village, where the scenery, such as rice terraces, attracts many tourists from the surrounding area. Suddenly, though, he found himself back on the farm, standing in muddy paddy fields planting rice seedlings.

It was not the life the 36-year-old had imagined for himself. In recent years, Lieshen has made great efforts to develop rural tourism.

With the help of local authorities, residents have turned their farmhouses into homestays and transformed the landscape into scenic attractions.

Tourism is a pillar industry for many residents and has even drawn young people back to work in the village after graduation, Zhang said.

The epidemic put business on ice. "It's the first time in several years that no one has booked my hostel, and sometimes I want to cry," he said.

"It seems to me that everything is returning to the old ways (farming). That's what we have to do rather than doing nothing."

The blow forced Zhang to maintain a skeleton staff. He cut the employees' pay and hours, rotating them in for a week or two at a time while allowing them to make money elsewhere and also return to farm work.

"Actually, there isn't too much work to do in the hostel, since no tourists have showed up. I just want my staff members to know that we will overcome this hard time as a family," he said.