China, the first epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic, is cautiously starting to re-open some of its tourist attraction, but slowly and with new precautions in place. With travel to China mostly cut off, early visitors will mostly be local.
The Yungang Grottoes, seen above, are in Shanxi province, and re-opened on March 1, but only to 130 visitors. The numbers will be kept low, visitors will be screened for temperature and other symptoms, and will wear masks.
Similar precautions are in place for a section of the Great Wall at Badaling, about 50 miles north of Beijing. Visitors need to make appointments in advance, present health certificates, be screened and masked. Visitors will be limited to 30% of the normal limit, and will be required to keep well apart from other visitors.
There have also been a number of measures to help attractions recoup some of their losses. Shanxi Province has slashed electricity costs to attractions that had been closed, and some sites have been doing active fundraising. Tianzhu Mountain in eastern China had a ticket sale that sold 520,000 tickets and raised almost $750,000.
