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More leisure days

By Jiang Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-09-22 14:40

Tourists complained they saw more people than sights and many swore they would rather stay at home than travel under such conditions again.

After about a year of research, the government announced an adjustment to the holidays.

The big change came with the shortening of the original May Day holiday. From 1999 to 2007 it had been three days. Beginning this year it is one day.

Traditional one-day holidays - Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon-Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival that have been public holidays in Hong Kong and Taiwan all along, but not on the mainland - were designated as public holidays.

New Year's Day remains a one-day holiday. The Spring Festival keeps three days and two weekends, but the starting time has been adjusted from lunar New Year's Day to lunar New Year's Eve and National Day also remains a three-day holiday, plus two weekends.

During May Day holiday this year, the first shortened Golden Week, a total of 8.94 million people visited 119 designated tourist spots around the country from May 1 to May 3, 24.45 percent down from the same period last year.

Long-distance tours fell sharply despite an increase in short and mid-distance traveling to large cities and neighboring scenic spots, according to the authorities, which didn't give detailed numbers.

Reportedly small tourist groups such as families and friends rose by a big margin while family cars became the predominant form of transportation rather than planes, trains and buses.

According to a survey conducted before the holiday among 1,000 citizens in 10 major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xi'an, 44 percent of the respondents said they would like to "make a trip", mostly to nearby suburbs.

Among those who did not plan to travel, 60 percent chose to shop in their city. "Visiting relatives or friends" and "watching live performances or movies" were the next most popular choices, while others said they would just relax at home.

The shortened May Day holiday also aroused concerns of whether the National Day holiday this year will be even more crowded than it already is.

China also began to entitle its employees to paid holidays of five to 15 days off a year in addition to national holidays and weekends.

"A shortened May Day holiday has been effective in solving the problem (of an overused transportation infrastructure) but the implementation of paid holiday policies should meet China's growing demand for tourism," says Chen Xiaobin, general manger of the Beijing-based Caissa Travel.

Many are not sure about whether the paid holiday system can be fully realized or not. As competition for employment is fierce today, employers are not encouraging paid holidays and the majority of employees dare not press for them.

But as China's economy continues to grow and mature, its working hours will be reduced and Golden Weeks will be less necessary.

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