Add holidays to ease tourist congestion: report

Experts are urging the government to add more vacation days to alleviate the severe congestion in both traffic and scenic spots during the week-long National Day Holiday.

The number of domestic tourists during October's seven-day National Day holidays in 2012 reached 425 million, triple the number of 2006, according to a green book entitled China's Tourism Development Analysis and Forecast (2013-14) released on Wednesday.

The October holiday is peak travel season in China, as there are few other opportunities for a long break except for the Spring Festival, when people often return home for reunion, following the cancellation of the week-long May Day Holiday in 2008.

The report, compiled by the Tourism Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, predicts that the congestion would be difficult to alleviate and become even more severe in 2014, but it is optimistic of seeing improved holiday arrangements in the future as public outcry is becoming louder.

"The government should add two to six more vacation days, resume the [week-long] May Day Holiday and extend the Spring Festival holiday to help solve the congestion," said Liu Deqian, deputy director of the research center and one of the authors of the report.

Besides, paid leave should be better implemented and local governments should work on the expansion of tourist sites and promote more obscure local scenic spots to help solve the problem, Liu said.

Thousands of tourists were stranded in Jiuzhaigou, a famous tourist site in Southwest China's Sichuan province, for 11 hours due to congestion caused by excessive numbers of visitors on October 2, 2013.

Since the government lifted highway tolls during long holidays in October 2012, traffic congestion has also been severe, with the number of passengers on the highways reaching 85.6 million the first day of the policy's implementation, an increase of 13.3 percent from the previous year, said the report.

According to a survey conducted by sina.com.cn on Wednesday, more than 86 percent of the 22,000 respondents support resumption of the May Day Holiday, and an overwhelming 96 percent called for a longer holiday for the Spring Festival.