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China’s tourism sector is off to a strong start as the extra-long “super golden week” holiday begins, with railway travel breaking records and tickets for many popular attractions selling out – a welcome sign for Beijing as it continues its efforts to spur domestic spending.
On the first day of the eight-day holiday, created by an overlap of the week-long National Day celebration and the Mid-Autumn Festival, China’s railways carried 23.13 million passengers – a record single-day figure, according to a Thursday social media post from operator China State Railway Group.
Several stations in major cities also set records. Guangzhou South Station handled 922,000 arrivals and departures on Wednesday, topping the previous single-day peak set in 2023, local media reported.
Chongqing Railway Station saw a record 368,000 passengers on the first day of the holiday – 39,000 more than the previous single-day high, reported during this year’s Labour Day break.
Other modes of travel also saw gains. According to Ministry of Transport data, waterway travel rose 20.5 per cent year on year, with 1.32 million passengers on the first day of the holiday, while air passengers totalled 2.47 million, up 3.2 per cent compared to 2024. The headcount for road travellers hit 308.9 million, edging up 0.8 per cent year on year.
The travel rush has also tested the capacity of the country’s most popular tourist attractions. Jiuzhaigou National Park, a nature reserve in the southwest province of Sichuan, said in a social media post that tickets for October 2 to 6 had hit their daily cap and sales on all online platforms had been suspended, with a standby registration system available the day before entry.
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