Six months ago Chinese travel agency Tuniu ($TOUR) was on a journey of success. Reporting 2 million booked trips per month without much of a hint of slowing, the 2006-founded, Nanjing-headquartered company presented a strong tourism business model that had the likes of Expedia taking notice.
When China's National Health Commission confirmed the human-to-human transmission of COVID-19 on January 20, 2020, bookings screeched to a halt. As the crisis escalated, with many countries closing their borders to foreign national travel to slow the spread of the Pandemic, and China officially closing its own borders on March 28 there isn't a timeline when things might return to normalcy.
In our article on the 10 early indicators of economic recovery, we present the case that seeing a return in Tuniu bookings will be a positive sign that the economy is on the mend.
How the world's economy will look post-Coronavirus is unclear, and it may be some time before trips return to pre-pandemic levels. A positive uptick to a return to leisure travel in any form will be a bright point on the horizon.
About the Data:
Thinknum tracks companies using the information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales.
Further Reading:
- Courses at e-learning startup Classting have increased by 36,000 as students stay home
- Global "Were Here" count plummets as everyone stays indoors
- A graph of how memberships are plummeting at Australian gym chain Viva Leisure
