Eight-day National Day holidays sparks Greater Bay Area travel boom

Tourism has surged across the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, with millions traveling north from Hong Kong and Macao, with more mainland travelers spending their holidays in the two cities over this year’s “Golden Week” holidays.

Total arrivals and departures from Macao over the eight-day holidays were reported at 4,608,200, of which more than 931,400 were inbound tourists to Macao, according to the data released by Macao Government Tourist Office on Saturday.

In Hong Kong, tourist numbers jumped across the national day holidays. On the first day of the holidays on September 29, 122,877 mainland tourists visited Hong Kong, while 338,560 Hong Kong tourists left the city, among them, more than 250,000 travelers were heading to the mainland.

During the national day holidays, many Hong Kong tourists chose to travel to the mainland via the Shenzhen and Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao bridge (HZMB), with more than 500,000 passengers in over 90,000 vehicles crossing through the HZMB Zhuhai Port, according to the statistics from HZMB administration, ranking the first in China. On Monday, HZMB traffic exceeded 14,300 vehicles, setting a new record since the opening of the Bridge.

Many weekend guests who often come to the hotel to stay and rest have chosen to travel to the mainland, an employee from the Intercontinental Shenzhen told Global Times on Saturday.

As an important transportation hub, Shenzhen’s Rail network has been busy since the beginning of the holidays . From September 27 to October 2, 2,463,300 passengers travelled via Shenzhen Railway, up 65.57 percent over the same period last year, and an increase of 18.35 percent compare to the same period of 2019, according to Shenzhen government.

Transportation from Shenzhen to Hong Kong is now so convenient that it is both easy and comfortable to go to Hong Kong to take a city walk and have some lemon tea, a tourist surnamed Chen, who lives in Shenzhen, told the Global Times on Saturday.

According to Hong Kong Immigration department, over one million tourists visited Hong Kong over the eight-day National Day holidays, and many people traveled to the mainland from the city. Over 1.14 million Hong Kong residents departed the city during its National Day long weekend from September 29 to October 2, of which, about 74 percent headed to the mainland through land checkpoints and the West Kowloon express rail.

Chinese domestic travel saw an almost unprecedented spike during the National Day holidays, over the past eight days, Chinese tourists made a collective 826 million domestic trips and generated about 753.4 billion yuan ($104.7 billion), the Ministry of Culture and Tourism reported.