Visitors are seen at the Wangxian Valley Scenic Spot in Shangrao City, east China’s Jiangxi Province, September 29, 2023.

China’s 8-day National Day holiday sparks travel, consumption frenzy

BEIJING (Xinhua) -- Approximately a week prior to the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays, more than 6,000 hotel rooms in and around the Wangxian Valley Scenic Spot, popular for its cliffside lodges, situated in the city of Shangrao in east China’s Jiangxi Province, were completely reserved for the holiday period.
“Responding to the travel frenzy, we adopted an online reserving system to keep the daily passenger flow to 25,000 to provide tourists with better traveling experiences,” said Ding Yongxiao, who is in charge of the scenic spot.
The Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday will last from Sept. 29 to Oct. 6. This extended vacation period allows Chinese people to enjoy an eight-day break for travel and leisure.
“This might be the hottest National Day ‘golden week’ holiday ever,” said Dai Bin, president of China Tourism Academy. The institution predicted that over 100 million passenger trips are expected to be made across the country each day on average during the period.
Soaring tourism fervour
According to Alibaba’s travel platform Fliggy, orders for domestic and overseas trips during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays surged nearly 600 percent and more than 20 times year on year, respectively.
Li Yu, an avid rock music enthusiast, purchased a ticket a month in advance for the Strawberry Music Festival scheduled in Fuliang County in Jingdezhen, a globally renowned hub for porcelain production in Jiangxi.
“This is my first visit to Jiangxi,” said Li, 25, who took the high-speed train from Shanghai to Jiangxi. In addition to attending the local music festival, she said she plans to visit the ceramic art fairs and the ceramic museum in Jingdezhen.
According to statistics, during the eight-day holiday, nearly 100 concerts and performances will take place in Beijing, Shanghai, Foshan and other major cities in China, fuelling the local tourism boom. Fliggy said the cumulative hotel bookings for these cities during the holiday have soared approximately 500 percent compared with last year.
Two days before the holiday, Zhang Yuji, who works in Shanghai, visited the coastal city of Qingdao in east China’s Shandong Province with her friend. As soon as they arrived there, Zhang and her friend headed straight for Cangma Town, which was one of the shoot locations of the recent hit Chinese film “Creation of The Gods I: Kingdom of Storms.”

(Latest Update October 2, 2023)