Visitors to the Laomendong area in Nanjing on February 2. Photo: Xinhua
Source:
https://scmp.com/news/china/article/2067943/golden-lunar-new-year-domestic-tourism-china China
A golden Lunar New Year for domestic tourism in China
Mainlanders make 344 million trips at home for holiday, packing the nation’s road and attractions
Shanghai’s Bund is jammed with strollers on January 28. Photo: Xinhua
The mainland saw 344 million domestic tourist trips during the seven-day Lunar New Year holiday, a rise of 13.8 per cent from last year, and total tourism spending jumped 15.9 per cent, the China National Tourism Administration said.
Many attractions were forced to restrict entrance because there were too many visitors to handle.
The Shanghai Disney Resort was forced to cancel on-site ticket sales twice during the holiday, which began on January 27.
Zhangjiajie in Hunan province was so overcrowded that the provincial tourism authority issued an urgent notice asking all tourist facilities not to oversell tickets.
The Tianzhu Mountain park in Anhui, which has a capacity of 36,000 tourists a day, saw the actual number reach 850,000 on the first day of the Year of the Rooster, Xinhua reported.
Tourism and sightseeing have become the way to celebrate the Lunar New Year for many Chinese families, along with the traditional banquets and fireworks.
Private cars have helped increased the allure of travel at home, although their use caused holiday traffic jams on roads leading to major attractions.
Major roads leading to Mount Huangshan, for instance, were jammed on February 1, with people forced to walk for several kilometres to reach the entrance gate, Xinhua said.
The holiday crowd in Jincheng, Shanxi province. Photo: Xinhua
A total of 6.15 million Chinese also went abroad, a rise of 7 per cent from a year earlier, and 697,000 mainlanders visited Hong Kong, a rise of 3.7 per cent.
The tourism boom is spreading to China’s remotest corners. The Islamic regions of Xinjiang and Ningxia proved particularly popular with domestic travellers during the holiday, according to government figures.
Tourism visits increased more than 20 per cent in Xinjiang and more than 30 per cent in Ningxia, the two regions with a concentration of Muslims, the country’s tourism administration said yesterday.
More than 1.5 million visitors entered Xinjiang during the holiday week, and the massive inflow led to a shortage of home-stay beds offered by locals.
Tourists visit the temple fair in Ditan Park in Beijing. Photo: Xinhua
“I have been in the tourism business in Xinjiang for 14 years. This is the first time I encountered such a situation,” Li Hua, the director of tourism at Kanas Lake, told the news website Ts.cn.
Xinjiang has been plagued by ethnic tensions in recent years. A massive conflict between Han Chinese and Uygurs in the regional capital of Urumqi killed more than 150 people in 2009, and the region still maintains strict security checks at all public venues.