China's May Day Holiday: The Numbers!
Image source:https://www.chinadailyhk.com/article/309515
China's May Day holiday, also known as International Workers' Day or Labor Day, has brought a record number of tourists to the country and provided a much-needed boost to the economy. From April 29 to May 3, more than 240 million holidaymakers travelled within or outside mainland China, according to state media CCTV, an increase of more than 20% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019. China's hard-hit tourism industry is now on the path to recovery, a record number of over 115 million tourists are travelling within China reported by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in China.
Some of the top tourist cities visited during the holiday season in China were Zibo, Beijing, Hangzhou, Dali, Xiamen, and Xi'an. The accommodation was selling out weeks ahead of the holiday, pushing up prices, and there were complaints of scalping. Due to the high demand, many Chinese tourists who had booked their accommodations early at low prices were later told to cancel their reservations, forcing them to book again at higher prices.
Despite the challenges, the boom in tourism is likely to boost the Chinese economy, which is struggling to recover after the country abruptly ended its self-imposed Covid isolation late last year. Chinese travel booking website Trip.com reported that domestic bookings alone had risen by 700% compared to last year when many restaurants and retailers were shut, and travel was complicated due to the pandemic. Hotel bookings are emerging with "several hundred million yuan" in gross merchandise value, and 55% of bookings have been made with four- and five-star hotels as higher quality trips are in demand amid safety concerns.
A total of 4,000 attraction sites were open for tourists during the May break, a record number since the pandemic, with Taiping National Forest Park in central China's Xi'an city and the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall in Beijing among the most popular destinations based on bookings on Trip.com.
While medical specialists advised the public to take precautions and avoid overcrowded places, the May Day holiday brought much-needed relief to the tourism industry and provided a glimmer of hope for the struggling economy.