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
Dolly Parton’s sister has said that the country singer is “going to be just fine” after worrying fans by asking for prayers.
Freida Parton had asked people for prayers for the Jolene and I Will Always Love You singer on Tuesday.
“Last night, I was up all night praying for my sister, Dolly. Many of you know she hasn’t been feeling her best lately,” Ms Parton wrote in a Facebook post.
“I truly believe in the power of prayer, and I have been [led] to ask all of the world that loves her to be prayer warriors and pray with me.
“She’s strong, she’s loved, and with all the prayers being lifted for her, I know in my heart she’s going to be just fine. Godspeed, my sissy Dolly. We all love you!”
Image: Parton performs during her concert in Ijsselhallen in Zwolle, Netherlands, in 2007. Pic: AP
After shocked fans took to social media expressing worry about Parton’s health, her sister said in a second post on Wednesday: “I want to clear something up. I didn’t mean to scare anyone or make it sound so serious when asking for prayers for Dolly.
“She’s been a little under the weather, and I simply asked for prayers because I believe so strongly in the power of prayer. It was nothing more than a little sister asking for prayers for her big sister.”
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It comes after Parton announced in September that she had to postpone her upcoming Las Vegas residency over “health challenges”.
Image: Dolly Parton performs with the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders in 2023. Pic: Reuters
“As many of you know, I have been dealing with some health challenges, and my doctors tell me that I must have a few procedures,” the singer said at the time.
“As I joked with them, it must be time for my 100,000-mile check-up, although it’s not the usual trip to see my plastic surgeon!”
Parton said she was postponing the shows because she is “not going to be able to rehearse and put together the show that I want you to see. You pay good money to see me perform, and I want to be at my best for you”.
The country star was set to perform six shows at Caesars Palace in December, but her performance dates have been moved to September 2026.
“Don’t worry about me quittin’ the business because God hasn’t said anything about stopping yet,” Parton said as she announced the postponement of her shows. “But I believe he is telling me to slow down right now so I can be ready for more big adventures with all of you.”
It costs $5,000 less than the Model Y Long Range RWD, which Tesla now calls “premium”, along with the AWD and Performance versions, while Tesla removed roughly $6,000-$8,000 worth of features.
The value proposition is not great, but that’s not the only reason why Tesla doesn’t seem to want to sell it.
The automaker currently doesn’t offer a lease on the new version, which is not unusual after having just launched a new variant or model. For example, Tesla is still not offering leases on the Model Y Performance, which only recently launched in the US.
But more importantly, Tesla is financing the new Model Y Standard at an APR almost 30% higher than for the cheaper “Premium” version.
The result is only $72 difference in monthly payments between the two versions:
The difference is virtually the same as between the Premium RWD and AWD, but you get a whole additional motor for that.
Electrek’s Take
We have been anticipating a situation like this, but it is honestly even worse than we thought.
For example, we didn’t anticipate Tesla removing Autopilot as standard. That alone is a few thousands dollars of value removed before even accounting for the hardware changes, such as the cloth interior, cheaper seats, or even the power folding mirrors.
Then, there are the honestly quite lazy changes, like not actually removing the glass roof, but covering it inside with a headliner.
The only really good thing I see from this launch is that it is very efficient EV and Tesla still has a lead on that front over most.
However, I have to reiterate that it is getting lazy with this lead.
The standard version is only 125 lbs lighter than the premium despite Tesla seemingly using the same battery pack with a few cells removed. When you add up all the features removal, the weight loss should be much more significant, but that’s harder to do when you make decision such as covering the glass roof rather removing it.
Tesla has to know that the value proposition here is not good.
It’s a bummer that Tesla went with that rather than a new smaller and less expensive vehicle as originally planned.
Especially when you consider that the decision was made to try to increase the utilization rate of Tesla’s current production lines, which appears to be running at about 60% amid this demand slump.
I don’t think this, and the new standard Model 3, which is better value to be fair, solve this situation.
As I previously stated, I believe this boost demand between 10-15% and that’s after Tesla either drops the price or introduces 0% interest financing, which I expect before the end of the quarter.
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An ABB robot on a production line at the Sony UK Technology Centre in Pencoed, UK.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
SoftBank Group on Monday said it had agreed to buy the robotics division of Swiss engineering firm ABB for $5.4 billion, as the Japanese giant looks to bolster its artificial intelligence plays.
The deal, which is subject to regulatory approval globally, means ABB will no longer look to spin off its robotics business as a separately listed company.
“SoftBank’s next frontier is Physical AI. Together with ABB Robotics, we will unite world-class technology and talent under our shared vision to fuse Artificial Super Intelligence and robotics — driving a groundbreaking evolution that will propel humanity forward,” Masayoshi Son, founder of SoftBank, said in a statement.
Artificial Super Intelligence, or ASI, is Son’s idea of AI that is 10,000 times smarter than humans.
Son has looked to position SoftBank at the center of the potential AI boom through investments and acquisitions in different areas of technology. SoftBank owns chip designer Arm, for example, and has a major stake in OpenAI.
SoftBank already has some robot-related investments, including AutoStore Holdings and Agile Robots.
The Japanese conglomerate is not new to robotics. In 2012, SoftBank took a majority stake in a French company called Aldebaran. Two years later, the two companies launched a humanoid robot called Pepper — a bet that ultimately flopped, but robotics has now re-emerged as a key focus for the Japanese giant.
Morten Wierod, who became CEO of ABB in August 2024, has pushed the spin-off of the company’s robotics unit as a strategic move.
ABB said in a statement that the sale “will create immediate value to ABB shareholders.” The company said it will use the proceeds from the transaction “in line with its well-established capital allocation principles.”
ABB said it expected cash proceeds of approximately $5.3 billion. The expected separation cost is around $200 million, about half of which is already in ABB’s 2025 guidance.