| Holiday 'golden' for tourism industry
2003-10-09
China Daily
The week-long National Day holiday has witnessed some 90 million tourists
travelling across the country, a record high since the first "Golden Week"
holiday in 2000.
The mass movement brought 34.6 billion yuan (US$4.2
billion) worth of income to shops, restaurants, hotels, scenic spots and various
businesses related to the tourist industry, which were hit hard by the outbreak
of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) earlier this year.
The
tourist arrivals nationwide from October 1 to 7 jumped by 11.5 per cent over the
same period last year, with their spending up 13.1 per cent, the National
Tourism Administration announced yesterday.
Air carriers have benefited
greatly from the travel boom, with 1.65 billion yuan (US$200 million) in volume
reported during the week, up 29.9 per cent year on year. The railways also took
a pleasing share with over 1 billion yuan (US$128 million) worth of fares, up 6
per cent.
The gain is also an all-time high since the State authority
began week-long holidays, known as Golden Week for International Day of
Labour in May and National Day in October every year in 2000.
"We
are proud to declare that we have made exciting achievements economically and
socially in this Golden Week," said Sun Gang, executive director of the National
Holiday Office assigned by the administration.
Nobody dared to say
anything like that during the Labour Day holiday starting on May 1 this year
when Beijing, shadowed by the deadly epidemic of SARS, was empty of
tourists.
Tourism income across the country plummeted, since people had
to stay home for fear of the extremely contagious virus.  |
