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China Gets More Prepared for Holiday Travel
In the face of increasingly popular holiday travel, major scenic spots across China have gotten more prepared by repolishing their tourist markets to embrace the week long National Day holiday.
With the government's encouragement to expand the consumer market during long holidays, the tourist market this year has taken the lead to take on a prosperous scene during three major holidays, namely Labor Day, National Day and during the Spring Festival (Lunar New Year), which usually comes in every February.
The Southern China Airline planned to add 1,400 flights during the National Day holiday. Most of the increased flights are added on routes to major scenic spots, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Yellow Mountain, Guilin and Haikou.
The famous tourist city of Guilin, in southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, earned 2.5 billion yuan (301 million U.S.dollars) in tourism revenue during the seven-day International Labor Day holiday in May this year, when some 310,000 tourists visited the city.
The city is expecting another large influx of tourists in October. It is now capable of accommodating some 350,000 tourists, according to an investigation carried out in September, which aimed to rectify the tourist market.
Major tour routes in the city, such as the cruise trip down the Li River, can receive up to 20,000 people a day.
The city's tourism department has intensified its cooperation with transportation, commercial and urban planning departments in stabilizing price, smoothing traffic, maintaining a clean environment and launching tourist promotions. It has also effectively improved the information forecast system of passenger flows, which is an important indicator for tourists to decide where to go during the holiday.
In Guangzhou, whose airport recorded the heaviest passenger flow during the National Day holiday last year among airports in China, preparation works have been launched a month earlier.
Tourist agencies began to deal with travel arrangements for National Day at the end of August.
During this holiday, some 850,000 passengers are expected to come and go through Gongbei Customs, which links Macao and Guangdong Province. As this is the first National Day after Macao returned to the motherland, more tourists from inland regions are expected to visit the city during the holiday.
China's largest tourist island of Hainan has taken resolute measures to stabilize tourist market prices before National Day.
It shut down 23 illegal tourist agencies in September, and another 45 tourist agencies have had their business licenses suspended for further investigation.
Visitors are often scared away by prohibitive or deceptive prices during holidays on the island, which is famous for its tropical scenery and clean beaches.
The island will also use the travel season to promote the sales of its backlog of real estate, such as villas and apartment buildings.
Hubei Province in central China has decided to concentrate on promoting the Shennongjia Nature Reserve, which is famous for stories and the searching of "Bigfoot," believed to be a half-man, half-ape creature.
Guided tours on the periphery of the nature reserve will soon be provided in Fall, announced the local tourist authority earlier this year. During the National Day holiday, some 150,000 visitors are expected to flock to the mysterious mountain.
Jiang Zhuping, governor of Hubei Province, said in September that Shennongjia will cater to the need of high-quality travel, which would combine biological preservation with ecological tourism development.
The provincial government has approved 20 million yuan (2.4 million U.S. dollars) of funds to optimize the facilities in the mountain.
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