Mask crusaders

It said on its website that it has convened an emergency meeting to discuss the problems involving distribution, and pledged to hold accountable the people directly in charge and exercise more caution over the task.

The outbreak has forced many Chinese to cancel trips and stay at home during the holiday.

China received 415 million tourist visits during last year's Spring Festival (Feb 4-10), up 7.6 percent as compared with the same period in 2018, the China Tourism Academy reports.

Tourism income reached 513.9 billion yuan ($74.1 billion), up 8.2 percent.

About 6.3 million Chinese travelers made outbound trips during the 2019 Spring Festival holiday, according to the academy.

Liu says she was somewhat fortunate compared to her business counterparts, because many of her guests chose to travel after March.

She was busy answering her clients' phone calls about trip rescheduling and cancellations days before the Spring Festival holiday this year.

"We were not very optimistic after hearing about the Wuhan pneumonia at the end of December," Liu says.

"Hoping for the best, we had moved on with our business, and flights and hotels were all booked (for our customers)."

Then, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism ordered travel agencies nationwide to suspend group tours and solo travel services that cover flight tickets and hotels on Jan 24.

"It was all worse than what we had expected," Liu says.

Fortunately, most of Liu's customers were quite understanding and agreed to accept the cancellations or to reschedule their trips.

"Most of them can see the big picture and are calm and rational," Liu says.

At the moment, more than 90 airliners have agreed to fully refund passengers' canceled tickets, but Liu says hotel costs might be irrevocable.

She's still waiting for a reply from her business partners in outbound destinations.

In addition to all the preparations her company made for customers, Liu says she probably would still lose some of her clientele to big travel agencies.

Some popular Chinese travel-service providers have offered full refund for travelers. Ctrip, for example, has refunded all those who booked trips departing between Jan 28 and Feb 29.

At the moment, Liu says she just hopes the virus situation will be resolved as soon as possible, so that everything can go back to normal.

A considerable number of her customers, though, haven't canceled, including Japanese tours in March, European excursions in April and trips to Morocco in May. Liu believes things will get better eventually.

Speaking about her future plans, Liu says she will put in more time to better understand the needs of her customers and develop better products.

She is also on the way to becoming a future tour supplier for Ctrip.

"It will open the door to more potential customers and allow me to share the risk," Liu says.