Due to the spreading coronavirus, Belarusian travel agencies have to cancel tours to China, their representatives told Belsat.
The situation has changed radically for travel agencies, working with China,. They were planning to send new groups to China in the near future.
“At the moment, we do not offer tours. We have suspended them. It’s not that the demand from tourists has dropped significantly, it just doesn’t exist,” the Sonata tourism studio said.
The situation in the travel company “Wheel of Travel” is similar.
“Now there are no flights anymore. So we do not book seats. There are not even offers,” noted the travel agency.
But tours to other Asian countries, including neighboring ones, such as Vietnam, are still popular among Belarusians.
The Tourtrans company which is not so actively working with Asia, says that this year there were no people willing to visit China.
Coronavirus did not have any effect
Minsk restaurants of Chinese cuisine, however, as wellas various spa salons and medical centers have hardly noticed a drop in attendance.
The Shanghai restaurant notes that the situation with the coronavirus has not affected the attendance in any way. The Chinatown restaurant also claims that the disease has no effect, although it noted that there are slightly fewer visitors. But they link it rather with the New Year holidays.
“Visitors are not all back yet, and the coronavirus did not have any effect,” said the restaurant representative.
However, given the fact that the holidays for Chinese students have been extended due to the coronavirus, you can indirectly notice the impact.
At the Yangtze restaurant, the number of visitors, has decreased slightly, if at all. There has been no noticeable drop in attendance.
There have been no significant changes in Asian spas in Minsk, either. Thus, representatives of the White Lotus, which specializes in Thai spa procedures, say that “in general, nothing has changed, everything is fine,” and emphasize that China has nothing to do with it.
Representatives of the Minsk Regional Clinical Hospital, where the Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine operates, also say the coronavirus has not had impact on the work of the institution.
“We don’t have people from China working here. They came for three weeks in January. Now we have Belarusians, who were trained in China last year,” said the hospital representative.
Meanwhile, on February 7, the Brihantsina facility near Radashkovichy had the first group of Chinese students come there for rehabilitation, spokesman for the Ministry of Health Yuliya Baradun told Belsat. More groups of Chinese students are expected to come there in the future.
