Tourism and COVID-19 in China: recovery and resilience strategies of main Chinese tourism cities

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the recovery and resilience tourism strategies and possible future developmentoffourmainChinesetourismcities. Design/methodology/approach – The authors collected data from the official accounts of tourism administrations of these cities, tourist attractions and opinions from media and newspapers in Sina Weibo platform. The authors adopted an inductive approach in observing relevant social media posts and appliedcontentanalysistoidentifymainChina’stourismpreventionandrecoverystrategies. Findings – During the mass pandemic infection period, top-down prevention and control measures were implemented by the Chinese central and local governments, with feasible and regional recovery policies and protocols being adapted according to local situations. Measures related to tourism industrial re-employment, improvement of international images and governmental financial supports to re-boost local tourism in Chinese cities were paid great attention. Digitalization, close-to-nature and cultural heritages became important factors in the future development of China’s tourism. Dark tourism, as a potential tourism recovery strategy, also obtained huge emergence, for the memory of people deceased in the pandemicand for the inheritance ofnationalpatriotism. Originality/value – This study enriches the current literature in urban tourism recovery studies analyzing the specific case of Chinese tourism cities and fulfill some voids of previous research mostly focused on the first wave of the pandemic and the recovery strategies mainly of Western cities. It also provides valuable suggestions to tourism practitioners, destinations and urban cities in dealing with regional tourism recession and finding possible solutions for the scenario associated to the COVID-19 and other similarhealth crisis.


Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought devastating effects to the global tourism industry. As reported by the UNWTO (2022), in 2021 international arrivals were 72% below the pre-pandemic year of 2019, being also expected that the total recovery could not be achieved until 2024 or beyond. The long-term negative impacts of COVID-19 on the global tourism aroused a lot of discussion on prevention measures, for instance, strict isolation and PCR testing (Nagai & Kurahashi, 2022), and appealed to the construction of public health infrastructure (e.g. contact tracking, sanitation, distancing) (V arzaru, Bocean, & Cazacu, 2021). These COVID-19 prevention measures were used to control the disease, but also provoked the reduction of tourism arrivals and revenues (Nagai & Kurahashi, 2022), calling for the need of developing tourism recovery research and plans. This objective would demand the conjoint efforts from all, regional and local governments and tourism companies, in the enhancement of financial stimulus for releasing short economic burden, and stabilizing long-term tourism employment, Luqi Yang, Xiaoni  destination branding and a better preparedness for the health crisis management (Knight, Xiong, Lan, & Gong, 2020;Pasquinelli, Trunfio, Bellini, & Rossi, 2022;V arzaru, Bocean, & Cazacu, 2021).
This global awareness on the need of tourism recovery and resilience protocols emerged also at a country level. In the specific case of China, this country has been recognized by its rapid COVID-19 mitigation responses and tourism recovery (McCartney, 2020). Since the outbreak of the global crisis, multiple strategies were adopted, giving response to the different stages of domestic pandemic, including strict transmission tracing and targeting regional policies in the face of small-scaled spreading (Cheng et al., 2021). Under the gradual control of COVID-19 in China, we witnessed a huge increment of new tourism products such as family, independent tours, wellness and personalized traveling in nature areas (Huang, Shao, Zeng, Liu, & Li, 2021), as well as the utilization of digital technologies in the enrichment of tourist experiences . As a consequence, tourism industry in China is expected in 2022 to recover to 70% of the pre-pandemic level (Yang, 2022), revealing the relevance of analyzing the specific case of China's prevention measures and recovery strategies.
Going down to a regional and local perspective, we found tourism studies that highlighted prevention policy implementations, e.g. in the case of Macao region (China), Hongkong city (China) and Can Tho city (Vietnam), emphasizing the governmental support in mobility supervision, disinfection, distancing, etc. (Im, Lam, & Ma, 2021;Huynh, Duong, Truong, & Nguyen, 2022;Yu et al., 2021). However, these prevention measures referred to the first wave and recovery stage (Im, Lam, & Ma, 2021;Yu et al., 2021), mainly during 2020 which might be considered outdated, because the pandemic covers a longer period with different intensity in its multiple stages that may demand different responses. In addition, most of these policies proved ineffective due to the delayed local application (Huynh, Duong, Truong, & Nguyen, 2022). Also, previous studies in tourism recovery research on tourism cities mainly shed light on the construction of sustainable city branding and responsibility, especially in European destinations and Australian cities (Bosone, Nocca, & Fusco Girard, 2021;Jiricka-Pü rrer, Brandenburg, & Prö bstl-Haider, 2021;Kowalczyk-Aniol, Grochowicz, & Pawlusinski, 2021;Pasquinelli, Trunfio, Bellini, & Rossi, 2022), being scarcer the studies carried out on Chinese cities and destinations.
To overcome these voids, we chose the main China's tourism cities as research targets and identified the following objectives: to investigate prevention measures of China's main tourism cities -Wuhan, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou; and to identify the recovery strategies and new trends of local tourism developments of these cities.
Compared with previous research on prevention policies, this study proposes to expand the timespan of China's pandemic diffusion to the second and third wavefrom January 2020 to September 2021, which contributes to a more completed view of the whole phenomenon under investigation, and it is beneficial for identifying the changes of local tourism strategies. In addition, the focus of this study on China's tourism resilience and recovery protocols brings a more holistic review that complements and enriches this line of research on global tourism recoverycomparing China with other Western tourism cities and destinations.

Prevention measures under the pandemic backdrops
Ever since the outbreak of COVID-19, scholars worldwide have emphasized the importance of the pandemic prevention measures. Previous studies illustrated the need of conjoint efforts from governments, health professionals and local communities in the construction of open communications, public health infrastructures and capabilities to provide in-time response and measures in dealing with global health emergencies. These measures included testing, sanitation, social distancing and mobility tracing (Qiao, Zhao, Xin, & Kim, 2021;V arzaru, Bocean, & Cazacu, 2021;Villac e-Molinero, Fern andez-Muñoz, Orea-Giner, & Fuentes-Moraleda, 2021).
Prevention measures applied at a local level by tourism cities or regions were also analyzed. In the specific case of China, Im, Lam, & Ma (2021) emphasized the prevention measures applied in Macao region, which included strict mobility restrictions, guarantee of mask supply, quarantine measures, disinfection of hotels and public places and cancellation of big events. Similarly, Yu et al. (2021) advocated the utilization of digital passenger contact tracing and strong nonpharmaceutical preventions, especially in controlling the pandemic diffusion brought by international travels in the case of Hongkong city. Out of China, Huynh, Duong, Truong, & Nguyen (2022) analyzed Can Tho city (Vietnam) and concluded the relevance of proper crisis preparedness, proactive and adaptive management over the global pandemic, after observing the negative effects of the overload of healthcare system and ineffective governmental response in some waves during the pandemic.
We conclude that the studies on the prevention measures applied in tourism cities are quite scant, and that they mostly concentrated in a limited time span, basically during the first wave and the corresponding recovery stage. As a consequence, this paper aims to fulfill this gap, by not only expanding the research timespanincluding both the first and second wave of China's pandemic expansion with their corresponding recovery stages, and the third wave of expansionbut also extending the scope of the research targets to four main China's mega tourism cities -Wuhan, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, so as to bring about a more complete view of the pandemic prevention response at a local level and its changes during different phases of the health crisis.

Tourism recovery strategies and protocols in a pandemic scenario
Worldwide researchers and tourism practitioners also paid attention to the recovery and achievement of a robust tourism growth in the pandemic scenario. With this objective, some measures were applied by governments as financial supports and tax reduction, the release of short-term financial burdens and fostering the improvement of crisis management abilities, flexible employment and development of recovery protocols and plans in the longterm (Knight, Xiong, Lan, & Gong, 2020;V arzaru, Bocean, & Cazacu, 2021). From the corporate perspective, main concerns were raised in the promotion of local destination image and recovery of customer confidences, which required a more effective customer relationship management, e.g. effective communication and refund policies (Liu, Fu, Hua, & Li, 2021a), and sustainable destination management in correspondence with changeable tourist cultural identity and travel preferences, e.g. high-quality personalized products in wellness, outdoor tourism (Neuman, Chelleri, & Schuetze, 2021;Huang, Shao, Zeng, Liu, & Li, 2021) and promotion of virtual experiences .
The resilience of the tourism industry, and especially in the case of tourism cities, emphasized the focus on a sustainable development perspective. On the one hand, some solutions were around the counterbalance of historical cultural resource preservation and the establishment of city branding under the sustenance of modern technologies. For instance, Naples (Italy) and Krak ow (Poland) both launched digital tours of local cultural attractions with the aims to provide immersive customer experiences, cultural identity and reservation of local heritages in the avoidance of over-tourism and COVID-19 transmissions (Bosone, Nocca, & Fusco Girard, 2021;Kowalczyk-Aniol, Grochowicz, & Pawlusinski, 2021). In addition, Macao region (China) devoted its efforts to tourism management, by embracing both governmental financial stimulus for the survival of local tourism enterprises, consumptions and regional technological collaborations in the enhancement of local cultural authenticity and branding (Liu, Wang, McCartney, & Wong, 2021b).
On the other hand, many European and Oceanian countries focused on the establishment of transformative and sustainable cities, promoting for example local green spaces and suburban areas, under the premise of orienting the traveling preferences towards domestic, outdoor, fresh environments (Liang, Leng, Yuan, & Yuan, 2021). The development of sustainable cities also involved the enhancement of city responsibility in combining green initiatives, technological innovation, resource management and mitigation of local conflicts together for the better preparedness of future tourism crises (Jiricka-Pürrer, Brandenburg, & Pröbstl-Haider, 2021;Pasquinelli, Trunfio, Bellini, & Rossi, 2022).
The last trend identified in previous studies on recovery strategies of the tourism industry from a local perspective considered the use of the pandemic as an opportunity to foster the sector (Zhang, 2021). There was a research line on dark tourism that uses historical disasters as a resource to boost tourism. It was the case of worldwide popular dark tourism sites that offer full cultural attractiveness to tourists (Lewis, Schrier, & Xu, 2021) and educational significances in the enhancement of human identities (Qian, Zhang, Zhang, & Zheng, 2017;Wang, Shen, Zheng, Wu, & Cao, 2021), taking profit of a strong marketing orientation in the establishment of authentic customer experiences and sense of belonging (Boateng, Okoe, & Hinson, 2018;Powell, Kennell, & Barton, 2018). In the specific case of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wuhan city has become a recognized destination of dark tourism because of its successful survival in the anti-pandemic campaigns in recent years (Stone, 2021).
This revision emphasizes the significance in the understanding of tourism cities' recovery strategies worldwide in the pandemic scenario, and the opportunity that it offers as a means to explore possible solutions to foster tourism recovery and development opportunities. In this dimension, we have found an absence of discussion over China's tourism recovery and resilience, which could be supplemented by this study, in the special case of China's tourism cities -Wuhan, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, with the aims to enrich current state of the art, discover new tourism growth potentials and better preparedness for tourism urban city survivals in the face of global health diseases.

Data collection
We chose main mega tourism cities of China -Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, as research targets to fulfill our objectives because of the following reasons. Shanghai, as the center of technology, innovation, trade and finance of China (Deng, Liu, Dai, & Li, 2019), has become a well-known international metropolis and famous tourist destination (Mou et al., 2020). Beijing, the capital and political heart of China, endowed with a long history of over 3,000 years and rich cultural heritages (Zhang, Chen, & Li, 2019). Guangzhouas the largest trade center of South China (Huang, 2021), has attracted thousands of worldwide and domestic tourists as a "shopping paradise" and city with worldwide tourist attractions . We also embraced the study of Wuhanas the origin of the first confirmed COVID-19 case. It has also obtained high worldwide reputation due to quick response, control over the pandemic and rapid recovery of local tourism and consumption from the health emergency (Wang, Li, & Zhang, 2022).
Data were collected using Sina Weibo, as one of the biggest micro-blogging platforms in China, which has been widely used by Chinese people to share their thoughts and interact with others due to its convenience in posting and retweeting online texts, pictures and videos. Sina Weibo platform was previously applied to conduct research on destination marketing strategies (Yang, Ruan, Huang, Lan, & Wang, 2021) and the solution of online complaints (Liu, Fu, Hua, & Li, 2021a).
Sina Weibo accounts considered in our research belonged to the local tourism administrations, tourist attractions and newspapers. We combined the tourist attraction ranking in Trip.com (Trip. com, 2022)one of the biggest travel agencies in China, by selecting top attractions with over 4.5/5 scores, including local museums [Wuhan Revolution Museum, Shanghai Museum, The Palace Museum (Beijing) and Guangdong Museum (Guangzhou)], scenic spots [Yellow Crane Tower (Wuhan), The Summer Palace (Beijing), The Canton Tower], resorts (Guangzhou Chimelong Tourist Resort, Shanghai Disney Resort), etc. Some local newspapers with over one million followers were chosen as targets including Eastday.com (Shanghai), WuhanChina.com, BeijingDaily.com and GuangzhouDaily.com.
In the next stage, we applied the advanced searching function of Sina Weibo, by refining the keywords of "tourism þ COVID-19," timespan as January 1, 2020 -September 16, 2021; and used the searching in all the three types of accounts we chose ( Figure 1). We supplemented the keywords to "tourism þ COVID-19 þ Shanghai/Wuhan/Beijing/Guangzhou" when we retrieved the information from local newspaper so as to make sure the relevant data are refined within the scopes of these four chosen cities. We chose Goo seekeran online data scraping platform to export all the relevant datatourism accounts, post time, topic, content, etc., and downloaded a total of 1,889 posts. We looked through all the data; removed the duplicates and the irrelevant data without the pandemic discussions. In total, we obtained 1,533 valuable posts.

Data analysis
We adopted an inductive approach, rooted in the observation of the phenomenon (Brotherton, 2015). During the analysis, the main researcher reviewed the sample to become familiar with the data. Frequently occurring features -COVID-19 prevention and China's tourism recovery strategies were identified as main codes. The other co-authors reviewed the initial codification and provided a holistic input on the codebook. In an iterative and reflexive process, the main researcher applied the coding strategy to all posts according to the coding framework established in the code identification process and categorized four subcategories as ticket policy and financial supports, international image, tourism growths and the development of dark tourism. The codification was discussed among all the coders until broad consensus was reached. Finally, we discussed the contents in each category and subcategory, refined them and elaborated the results.

Prevention measures and outgoing restrictions
Regarding China's prevention and outgoing restrictions, five stages of the pandemic expansion in mainland China were formalized (Wikipedia, 2021): the first wave (2019.12-2020.3) and recovery stage (2020.3-2020.11), the second wave (2020.12-2021.2) and recovery stage (2021.3-2021.6) and the third wave (2021.7-2021.8). Each stage embraced the discussion over both domestic and cross-border prevention information and outgoing restraints (Table 1). It was found that general instructions over COVID-19 prevention and control policies were imposed by the central government of China. During the different stages, flexible regional policies were further organized by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and implemented by the tourism cities, according to the situation of local COVID-19 expansion and travel mobilities.
4.1.1 The first wave (2019.12-2020.3) and recovery stage (2020.3-2020.11). Ever since the outbreak, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China already recommended a series of prevention measures including the close of travel agencies and careful control over tourism flow. By March 2020, domestic tourist attractions in low-infected regions were allowed to reopen under the consideration of actual situation of local pandemic. However, Wuhan, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou all conducted strict pandemic control, through closing main tourist attractions, activities and inputting tourist entrance temperature testing, reservation, regular cleaning and disinfection (Table 1, No. 1). By the middle of April 2020, a gradual recovery of China's outdoor scenic spots, tourist attractions and entertainment places appeared, refined with 30% of daily customer entrance limits (Table 1, No. 1). In May 2020, domestic restrictions were further released, through the overall reopen of hotels, restaurants, shopping malls and adjusting capacity of scenic spots and entertainment places from 30% to 50% (Table 1, No. 2). By September 2020, the domestic daily number of passenger entrance into scenic spots were expanded to 75%, with the overall reopening of both indoor and outdoor activities ( In terms of traveling, foreigner entry into China was suspended in this stage (Table 1, No. 8). In January 2020, Beijing and Wuhan also strengthened local outgoing control, with either suspending all the interprovincial passenger transports or improving local mobility supervision (Table 1, No. 9). The recovery of interprovincial travels and "hotel þ ticket" services in the low-infected areas appeared in July 2020 (   No. 5). In May 2021, regional mass infections reoccurred in Guangzhou, provoking the forbidden of indoor dining and close of entertainment places in highly infected districts (Guo, 2021). Partial Guangzhou's tourist attractions in low-infected areas could be open under a 50% limitation of the total holding capacity ( Table 1, No. 6).
The third wave started with the regional pandemic diffusion in Yunnan Province in July 2021, when the central government imposed strict prevention and outgoing control over all the country, as a national priorityinvolving reclose of partial scenic spots, strict control tourist entrance and public place disinfection (

Recovery strategies
Among the recovery strategies of China's tourism cities, four aspects were categorized, including ticket policies and governmental financial supports, promotion of international image, new types of local tourismcloud, culture and rural tourism and the development of China's dark tourism. Tables 2 and 3 summarized the results.

Ticket policies and financial supports.
In the face of the halt of domestic tourism, ticket policies were launched by local tourism administrations and tourist attractions. Full-refund and discount policies were provided by local tourist attractions to maintain the trustfulness from the customers (     . Shanghai and Beijing preferred to enhance local tourism competitiveness with the former integrating tourism and technological resources in e-sport and e-tourism consumptions; and the latter supporting the launching of tourism events such as oversees tourism promotion and market management (

International image.
During the recovery stage of domestic pandemic, international events were convened to transmit the rapid resilience message of China's tourism to the whole world. From June to December 2020, Beijing held several international festivals such as trade and service fairs, and brand festivals ( Table 2, No. 5). In October 2020, Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism celebrated the "Foreigners in China Traveling to Wuhan" event, where a sense of safety and satisfaction was expressed by the visitors ( Table 2, No. 5). At the same time, the foreign media CNN (Gan, 2020) released a report saying that "China has brought the new coronavirus pandemic under control. Now, hundreds of millions of people there are beginning to take vacations." CNN also specifically mentioned in the report that, "Wuhan becomes one of the most popular destination cities for the Chinese tourists and will regain its vitality and overcome the upcoming difficulties in dealing with the global pandemic." 4.2.3 New trends of tourism growth. 4.2.3.1 Development of China's "cloud tourism" and new technologies. Under severe outgoing restrictions, the main Chinese tourism cities launched "cloud tourism" to promote their tourism products and services through online platforms. One key method was to present vivid videos of local gastronomy, daily life and sightseeing to arouse people's memory over the past happiness to revisit the city after the pandemic. For instance, Wuhan local media appealed the tourists to see the "cherry blossoms" through visualizing its blooming on Weibo videos (Figure 2). Shanghai and Guangzhou Zoological Parks focused on the presentation of local images through illustrating adorable animal pictures (Figure 3).
The technology utilization into tourism recovery was also stressed by local tourism administrations and tourist attractions. The Palace Museum (Beijing) introduced one exhibition App, where a virtual reality panorama of the treasure collections in the museum was opened to the customers ( Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism launched the "Beautiful countryside" project, including the promotion of local rural tourism products such as forest recreation, agriculture sightseeing, self-driving camping, to help local tourists to escape from daily anxieties and avoid the exposition to the COVID-19 (Table 2, No. 14).

4.2.4
China's dark tourism. As part of the potential tourism recovery strategies, dark tourism related contents were analyzed in this section (Table 3). In 2020, several courses and exhibitions were held in Wuhan, Beijing and Guangzhou in the commemorate of the people who fought against the pandemic (Table 3, No.1 and Figure 4). Through the narrative scenes of the hospitals, and the stories of those who survived from the pandemic, the national bravery and persistence were showed and acted as an attractor for tourists. Moreover, entrance subsidies and discounts were offered to express the appreciations to the medical staffs who worked on the frontlines against the pandemic (

Discussion
This study focused on prevention measures and tourism recovery of four main China's tourism cities, under the pandemic backgrounds. From the perspective of prevention measures, a series of top-down and flexible regional policies were implemented according to the local situations of pandemic expansion and mobility flows. Our findings confirmed the relevance of prevention measures based on mobility restriction, public places disinfection, sanitation and distancing, similarly to worldwide researchers (Im, Lam, & Ma, 2021;V arzaru, Bocean, & Cazacu, 2021; Villac e-Molinero, Fern andez-Muñ oz, Orea-Giner, & Fuentes-Moraleda, 2021). Moreover, our findings emphasized the significance in the planning of urban tourism prevention protocols for cities, by taking close supervision over interprovincial, vacation travels and participation in tourist activities. We also witnessed the wide use of applications (Apps) for pandemic prevention and control in all the tourism cities in China, that allowed tourist trace within 14 days and recorded basic health conditions (Cheng et al., 2021). These applications served as an example for other countries and regions, for the improvement of pandemic management in tourist attractions and tourism cities or destinations.
In terms of tourism recovery, our results highlighted that Chinese tourism cities applied multiple strategies that allowed their rapid recovery. From our findings, we classified these strategies into four main typologies, including those related to financial supports, promotion of international image, new trends of local tourismemphasizing the role of technology, culture and nature and the development of dark tourism. Some of these strategies were also explored by previous studies. For example, new technologies played a key role in the form of digital tours launched in many European cities, such as Naples and Krak ow, for the enhancement of local cultural authenticity and reservation of heritage resources (Bosone, Nocca, & Fusco Girard, 2021;Kowalczyk-Aniol, Grochowicz, & Pawlusinski, 2021). These studies also stated that modern technologies would be able to accelerate the development of the contemporary tourism management and city branding in the pandemic scenario (  Among the new trends in tourism motivated by the pandemic also emerged the significant role of culture and nature in our results. It was pointed out similarly by previous studies that considered the pandemic as an opportunity for the exploration of areas with rich nature resources, changing tourist preferences towards tourism in nature and superb areas (Neuman, Chelleri, & Schuetze, 2021;Huang, Shao, Zeng, Liu, & Li, 2021). This idea was already developed into a sustainable tourism transition sense and advocated in many European cities, in the construction of green, inclusive and collaborative destinations (Jiricka-Pü rrer, Brandenburg, & Prö bstl-Haider, 2021;Pasquinelli, Trunfio, Bellini, & Rossi, 2022). In the future, China's tourism is also expected to be developed towards a more sustainable transformation, by embracing local characteristic, green initiatives, ecological and picking-up tours, local folks, homestays, etc. as part of the tourism reconstruction process.
One relevant recovery strategy that appeared in our results was the development of China's dark tourism under the pandemic background. From previous studies, this kind of tourism was regarded as part of post-disaster recovery and resilience strategies (Zhang, 2021). Travelers to Western and non-Western dark tourism sites could express differentiated feelingsmore entertaining, historic-oriented for Western tourist sites (Lewis, Schrier, & Xu, 2021) and more reflections on human life and national identity in non-Western (Qian, Zhang, Zhang, & Zheng, 2017;Wang, Shen, Zheng, Wu, & Cao, 2021). Our results confirmed these remarks, by presenting main large exhibitions and nationwide lamentation in Wuhan, Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. They were celebrated to memorize the people who sacrificed during the pandemic, contributing to the inheritance of traditional Chinese patriotism and self-sacrifice spirits.

Conclusions
As a conclusion, this study revealed that top-down prevention and control measures were implemented by the Chinese central and local governments during the stage of mass infection provoked by the pandemic. The promotion of international image through reemployment under governmental financial supports to re-boost China's tourism also gained great attention. New trends in tourism based on risk avoidance, digitalization, closeto-nature and cultural heritages have become crucial factors in the future development of China's tourism. Dark tourism, as a potential tourism recovery strategy, appeared with strength, not only for the memory of people deceased in the pandemic but also for the inheritance of national patriotism.
In general, this paper has enriched the literature in the context of the global tourism recovery and resilience, through filling the gaps around Chinese recovery of tourism cities, recognized worldwide by their effectiveness and speed. Our research provides a more holistic and complete view on the measures applied in the pandemic scenario, showing both, prevention measures and recovery strategies, to observe the adaptation of these measures and policies over time, in accordance with the evolution and different waves of the pandemic. Some strategies and trends were already stated by other studies, such as the use of new technologies and the thoughts on new approaches for obtaining a more sustainable tourism model. In our study we have complemented these strategies with those applied in Chinese cities, based on financial support and on the benefits of natural, cultural and identity heritages to boost tourism under adaptive and control measures to restrain contagion. Our results have also highlighted the pandemic as a driver of dark tourism, that could be extrapolated to other global severe health emergencies.
These strategies involve some practical implications for tourism cities, destinations and local governments in finding possible way-outs in controlling the local pandemic and boosting tourism activities and could be further expanded to local tourist attractions and scenic spots. Among these implications, it is worthy to mention the growth opportunities in exploiting traditional cultural and natural resources with the combination of modern technologies. It is also anticipated the suitability of a sustainable transition in the future of China's tourism recovery, particularly through the promotion of characteristic tourism, accommodations in some rural and suburban areas, that might boost tourism activities and impact positively cities' and destinations' image and sustainability. The exploration of dark tourism also emerges as a relevant solution for the tourism industry in Chinese tourism cities, with special emphasis on the inheritance of national patriotism and marketing opportunities in the promotion of historical stories and campaigns.
There are also some limitations and future research directions as follows. As the third wave of domestic pandemic occurred in September 2021, it would be of crucial importance to extend the research timespan and scope in investigating new policies, measures and tourism growths. Our research method, the content analysis in social media platforms, can be combined with analytical software to make it more systematic and precise (Ngo. T.T, Bui. L.A, Pham. T.H, Mai. N, & Bui. K, 2022). Moreover, we only concentrated on the supplier sidelocal tourism administrations and industrial practitioners, whereas other stakeholders such as tourists and local community could also be included in future research.