Millions to Celebrate Golden Week Holiday in China

BEIJING, May 1, 2007 — -- China kicked off its Labor Day holiday with an outburst of travelers flocking to train stations, bus stations and airports all over the country.

About 150 million Chinese are expected to take advantage of the week-long holiday, setting a new record in the country for Golden Week travel.

At the main railway station in the capital, thousands of people waited in line at all the 38 counters where train tickets were sold.

"I had to wait for about 30 minutes before I got my ticket," Min Fei said. Fei, a 30-year-old employee in a construction materials company, said he was willing to stand in line because he wanted to take the train back to his hometown in central China's Henan Province to visit relatives.

Shen Nan, a 40-year-old mother, and her teenage son waited for more than 40 minutes before they finally bought their train tickets to Shenzhen in southern China. "I am not sure if we still want to take this train," she said, "but it was not easy to get these tickets, and this is part of holiday travel these days."

The train station was a beehive of activity. As thousands rushed to catch their trains, thousands more from other provinces rushed out of the train station to look for buses and taxis to take them to their destinations in the capital.

The scene at the Beijing Airport this afternoon was somewhat similar, if slightly more organized, as Chinese tour groups, identifiable by the color of the caps worn by their members and by guides carrying their respective banners, arrived and departed in quick succession.

Zhang Dechan, a 30-year-old tourist guide, held a blue banner with the name of his travel agency as he fidgeted while waiting nervously for his tour group to come out of the arrival area. Zhang said he was expecting a group of 35 tourists from the city of Nanning in southwest China. "I have worked in Beijing for five years now, accompanying Chinese tourists," Zhang said. "And there are more and more groups coming from all over the country."

Jiang Lin and his family were part of a tour group that arrived this afternoon at the Beijing Airport. The 40-year-old insurance executive beamed with excitement and pride as he said, "I have been to Beijing on business before, but this time I wanted my wife and 4-year-old son to see the capital with their own eyes."

Lin and his family will go sightseeing in the capital for the next five days before heading back to their home in Chongqing, a major urban center in southwest China.

The travel boom sparked by Golden Week has been a bonanza for the domestic travel and service industry.

After the Chinese government launched these three weeklong holidays in 1999 for the Chinese Spring Festival, Labor Day and National Day holidays, the number of Chinese tourists has soared from 183 million in 2001 to 357 million in 2006, contributing $86 billion in tourist revenue since October 2000.

Last year alone, the three Golden Week holidays generated an estimated $19 billion in revenue. These Golden Weeks now account for as much as one-fourth of the domestic tourist market.

But there is an underside to the travel boom. When millions of people take off at the same time in China, public facilities get stretched beyond their capability, resulting in congested train stations and airports, crowded tourist spots and long traffic lines.

This gridlock prompted one government adviser last December to call for canceling the Golden Week holidays in May and October, and replacing them with paid holidays to allow more choice in scheduling holiday travel and ease the huge flow of human traffic.

An informal poll conducted by a Chinese news Web site indicated a surprising degree of public support for the proposal, with 65 percent of the 40,000 votes cast in favor of canceling the Golden Week holidays.

But the Chinese authorities are not yet ready to give up the goose that laid the proverbial golden egg. Wang Kecheng of the National Statistical Bureau defended the holiday system at a recent press conference, saying it would continue for at least the next few years because "there is still a lot of potential to be explored."

Another government official, Zhang Xiqin, deputy director of the National Tourism Administration, echoed the same sentiment. "With per capital GDP estimated to keep growing, there is a huge potential for tourism development during the Golden Week holidays."

He emphasized the benefits of developing tourism and expanding domestic consumption for sustaining the Chinese economic boom.

It remains to be seen how much public support there will be for changing the holiday system. Not that it matters in a society like China, but for the 150 million Chinese who will travel around the country this week, they are in a sense already voting with their feet as they take advantage of this "golden" holiday.