Golden week for tourism

Beijing (CNS) - The golden week of the Spring Festival drew about 176 million tourists into China, a year-on-year increase of 14.9 percent. And the tourism income in this period hit 101 billion yuan, 23.6 percent up over the same period last year.

Civil aviation took in about 5.5 billion yuan of the tourism revenue, and the railway's coffers were boosted by 3.05 billion yuan, according to a report by National Holiday Tourism Inter-ministerial Coordination Office (NHTICO) on January 29.

The report highlights 39 major tourism cities with earnings of 38.38 billion yuan, and mentions other areas with total revenues of 54.47 billion yuan.

An officer from NHTICO confirms holiday tourism is booming in China, and notes that an increasingly greater number of tourists are specifically taking an interest in folk celebrations and festivals.

On January 23, the first day of Chinese Lunar New Year, people headed for famous temples to pray for good fortune in the upcoming 12 months. Famen Temple in Shaanxi Province welcomed 216,000 visitors, and Lingyin Temple in Zhejiang Province got 58,200 visitors, a year-on-year increase of 38.9.

A considerably larger number of Shenzhen residents than usual went to Hong Kong this year, as the local government promoted travel conveniences such as a limitless-visits visa to the island and self-serve, electronic customs clearance.

According to the South Korean Tourism Bureau, about 45,000 Chinese went to South Korea during the Spring Festival, a year-on-year increase of over 30 percent.