BEIJING – China is bracing for a record-high travel rush over the Labour Day holiday.
Popular sightseeing spots are selling out of tickets, and some cities are warning would-be visitors away as domestic tourism rebounds after Beijing ended Covid-19 curbs.
The authorities are expecting 19 million trips to be made across Chinas vast railway network on Saturday, the first day of the five-day holiday.
That would be the highest number of rail trips made in a single day in the countrys history.
On May 1 last year, 4.4 million rail trips were made. That was also the period when China locked down several cities including Shanghai to battle the spread of the virus.
The last peak on the same day was in 2021, when 18.8 million such trips were made.
Over the 40-day Chinese 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 Chinese New Year and October Golden Week holidays.
But it is traditionally still one of Chinas 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, its hard this time, said Ms Di Jingshu, 21, as she waited for a train at Shanghais packed Hongqiao railway station on Thursday.
Chinas aviation authority said it expects air passenger trips to reach a total of nine million over the five days.
Booking sites for popular scenic spots, such as Beijings 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.
Trip.com Group said that reservations across its online travel platform had surpassed 2019 levels. More On This Topic China to scrap PCR test for inbound travellers Chinese travel is set to return, but the question is when? One small city, Zibo, in Chinas 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.
Three days later, it 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.
Bright spots were emerging, however, in cities such as Macau and Jakarta, according to a report from travel data firm ForwardKeys.
Bookings for outbound travel are around 50 per cent behind the pre-pandemic levels, it said. Chinese travellers have started to travel abroad but are still preferring destinations within the Asia Pacific region. REUTERS More On This Topic No spike in Chinas Covid-19 cases so far despite CNY travel rush Chinese airlines swamped with cabin crew applicants as travel rebounds
