China's COVID outbreak hitting services sector, travel, hospitality

Beijing: China's tighter social restrictions to fight its latest COVID-19 outbreak, now in its fourth week and involving more than a dozen cities, are hitting the services sector especially travel and hospitality in the world's second-largest economy.

China has refrained from full lockdowns of major cities such as those seen during the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak in Hubei province, to avoid totally paralysing the economy. "The current wave has led to the re-imposition of much tighter social distancing measures, which would significantly hurt the transport, tourism, and other service sectors," Citi analysts wrote in a note on Wednesday.