Woman's journey of the heart proves to be online success attracting enthusiastic audience on exploration of the world as well as landscape of emotions.

One tourism influencer rewrote her travel plans and itinerary amid the pandemic. Wang Fei completed a domestic tour with her parents in late August and is currently planning a second one.

The 32-year-old Beijing-based woman, from Dalian, Northeast China's Liaoning province, took her parents, in a recreational vehicle, across Southwest China's Yunnan province and the Tibet autonomous region after the pandemic was brought under control in the country.

"I had traveled around the world during my years in Beijing, and the pandemic pressed the pause key for me and allowed me to spend a good amount of time with my parents," says Wang, who quit her job at an advertising agency four years ago.

Before the pandemic, Wang had mainly focused on introducing overseas destinations to domestic travelers. She came up with the idea of "marrying herself to the world"-going so far as to wearing wedding gowns and taking photos at famous landmarks around the globe. As her popularity began to rise with her posts on social media, in 2016, she became a travel influencer.

Wang's idea was then picked up by people in the industry. Her photographer friend Xiao Mengya from Beijing joined her, and Wang also got sponsorship for her accommodation and wedding gown during her travels.

"It was one surprise after another," she says.

Wang's first visit was to the United States in 2016. "It was my most memorable experience," Wang says. "After all, I felt nervous taking pictures with a wedding gown in places filled with crowds."

Yet, her encounters with many "lovely angels" saw her concerns and worries vanish.

People applauded her idea and complimented her look at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.The trip emboldened her to take photos with passers-by on her following trips, such as with a boatman in Venice, Italy, and a family, also of Asian origin, in Times Square in New York. And considering her attire, it is a little surprising that she received marriage proposals from strangers in Brisbane, Australia.

Wang's accounts of her travel experiences in more than 20 countries have won her more than 300,000 followers on major travel and news media platforms, such as Mafengwo and Trip.com.

In early January, Wang went back to her hometown Dalian, after returning from Edinburgh, just as COVID-19 hit China.

"I had to cancel my overseas travel plans and stayed at home," Wang says.

She spent the lockdown at home sharing her overseas travel experiences online, which she says helped to fill the void.

"It feels good to reach out to the outside world this way," she says.

When domestic control of the pandemic was getting better, Wang began to focus on helping boost local tourism, including the cherry blossom festival in Dalian.

She recorded local beautiful scenes with her camera and developed articles to offer vicarious experiences for her followers. "They were responsive and expressed interest in the beauty of Dalian," Wang says.

Home runs

As overseas destinations were not an option due to the COVID-19 situation abroad, Wang thought of shifting her focus to domestic getaways in June.

"I figured I should take my parents to experience more places, food and fun across the country while they still can," Wang says.

Her idea coincided with a rebound in domestic travel, and she managed to get sponsorship from recreational vehicle companies, travel appliances and coffee brands.

The intimate RV environment brought Wang and her parents closer together, she says.

"Before, my parents did not consider what I did 'a real job', and they wanted me to settle down behind a desk at a company," Wang recalls. "During the trip, though, they helped me take photos to develop travel content and began to see how serious and hard my job actually is."

The stunning views of the country's western regions, and the interactions between Wang and her parents, further stimulated her followers' desire to travel.

"I was overwhelmed by their urge to get in touch with nature and be free," Wang says.

Last year, Chinese travelers made 155 million outbound trips, up 3.3 percent year-on-year, reports the China Tourism Academy, a professional research institute of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

They spent a cumulative $133.8 billion while on their trips in 2019, a year-on-year increase of more than 2 percent.

The outbound travel market has ground to a halt as the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has required all travel agencies to suspend the organization of group tours to outbound destinations to better tackle the pandemic.

Many of those travelers are turning to the domestic market.

During this year's Nov 11 Singles Day online shopping spree, which started on Nov 1, advance flight bookings from Sanya, Hainan province, to popular winter destinations such as Jilin province's Changbai Mountain rose more than 90 percent compared with a month ago at Alibaba's travel portal Fliggy.

The data also shows that tourists' interest in winter tourism destinations in Northeast China has increased 300 percent, and ski bookings have increased 110 percent from last winter.

Nine travel brands, including Hainan Airlines, Chimelong, Marriott and Hilton, saw trade break the 100 million yuan ($15.20 million) mark during this year's shopping spree, compared to only two brands during last year's Singles Day retail frenzy, according to Zhuang Zhuoran, a senior official with Fliggy.

Over 180,000 hotel buffet meals were sold during the spree, and RV tour product sales grew by 1,800 percent year-on-year.

But, experts were optimistic about outbound tourism in the long run, because of the nation's steadily recovering economy and the public's desire to see other parts of the world.

People's aspirations to live a better life remain unchanged, which can spell a better future for the outbound tourism market, says Yang Jingsong, a researcher at China Tourism Academy.

The efforts by foreign destinations to curb the spread of the pandemic will also help resume confidence of Chinese outbound travelers, Yang adds.

Speaking about her future plans, Wang says she is looking forward to wearing her wedding gown while riding across the plains in Africa and posing with penguins in the Antarctic when the world is fully recovered from the pandemic.