Fully booked! China braces for record May Day holiday rush

Trip.com

28/04/2023 08:26

By Sophie Yu and Brenda Goh
       BEIJING, April 28 (Reuters) - China is bracing for a
record-high travel rush over the Labour Day holiday, with
popular sightseeing spots selling out of tickets and some cities
warning would-be visitors away as domestic tourism rebounds
after Beijing ended COVID curbs.
    Authorities are expecting 19 million trips to be made across
China's vast railway network on Saturday, the first day of the
five-day holiday, which would be the highest number of rail
trips made in a single day in the country's history. 
    It compares to 4.4 million rail trips on May 1 last year,
when China locked down several cities including Shanghai to
battle the spread of the virus, and the last peak of 18.8
million on the same day in 2021. 
    Over the 40-day Lunar New Year travel period in
January-February this year, 348 million trips were made in
total, or about 8.7 million trips a day on average, according to
the National Railway Administration.
    The May holiday is far shorter than the Lunar New Year and
October Golden Week holidays but traditionally still is one of
China's busiest travel seasons as spring moves into summer. This
year, the holiday is crucial for the tourism industry as well as
the wider Chinese economy as the country strives to recover from
years of virus disruptions. 
    "It took me a lot of effort to get a ticket, it's hard this
time," said Di Jingshu, 21, as she waited for a train at
Shanghai's packed Hongqiao railway station on Thursday. China's
aviation authority said it expects air passenger trips to reach
a total of 9 million over the five days.
    Booking sites for popular scenic spots, such as Beijing's
Old Summer Palace and the Badaling section of the Great Wall
showed they were sold out of tickets for the first few days of
the Labour Day holiday, and Trip.com Group  9961.HK  said that
reservations across its online travel platform had surpassed
2019 levels. 
    One small city, Zibo in China's coastal Shandong province,
which has gone viral on Chinese social media in recent weeks for
its local barbecue cuisine, imposed an upper limit on Sunday on
hotel room rates and three days later issued a public letter
warning would-be visitors its downtown hotels were fully booked.
    "Passenger traffic has exceeded our accommodation capacity,"
it said, pleading for understanding should service levels fall
short given the anticipated swelling of visitor numbers. 
    Outbound travel for the holiday however continues to remain
constrained, in part due to a shortage of international flights,
although bright spots were emerging in cities such as Macau and
Jakarta, according to a report from travel data firm
ForwardKey's.
    "Bookings for outbound travel are around 50% behind the
pre-pandemic levels," it said. "Chinese travellers have started
to travel abroad but are still preferring destinations within
the Asia Pacific region."

 (Reporting by Sophie Yu and Brenda Goh; Additional reporting by
Xihao Jiang and Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Raju
Gopalakrishnan)
 ((Sophie.Yu@thomsonreuters.com; 861056692136;))