Ctrip estimated that more than 700 million people, or about half of the country’s population, would travel during the Golden Week. In just the first day of the week, 122 million people were on the move, a 7.5% increase compared with last year, according to state-media outlet Xinhua.
Badaling, the most-visited section of the Great Wall of China, was packed to the brim with 37,000 tourists visiting that span of the historic monument on the first day alone, a 40% increase from a year earlier.
On October 1, some 78,000 people—59,000 of them tourists—took the bullet train to Hong Kong. Overall, about 750,000 mainland visitors—about 10% of Hong Kong’s population—entered the city in the first three days, according to figures from Hong Kong’s immigration department.
Macao saw about 111,000 people visiting on the first day of the holiday. Over the first two days, Chinese arrivals rose by 27% from the year prior—the best two-day start in at least six years, reports Bloomberg (paywall).
The US, however, saw a sharp decline in Chinese visitors, with flight bookings to the country down 42% compared with last year’s Golden Week.
Likewise, as tensions between Taiwan and China have escalated this year, hotels in its southern coastal city Kenting saw a drop in occupancy rates due to a decline in Chinese tourists.
Read Original Article
