Millions to take to skies as China gears up for long Golden Week
After a strong summer, China’s travel market is about to get another boost as the Golden Week holiday arrives. More than 21m people are expected to take flights in the space of eight days — the equivalent of almost everyone in Australia getting on a plane in a little over a week. The Sept. 29-Oct. 6 holiday encompasses both Mid-Autumn festival and the National Day break, which doesn’t always happen as the date of the former depends on the lunar calendar. The extra day is a bonus after the population was essentially denied the opportunity to travel during the years of Covid-19. “More than 21m passengers will travel by air during the holiday period,” Jin Junhao, a deputy director at the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said at a briefing in Beijing on Sept. 15. Just domestically, there will be some 14,000 domestic flights a day, according to the regulator. With Chinese tourists racing to book flights, airfares are climbing — by more than double on some of the more popular routes. Air China economy-class tickets from Beijing to Chengdu on Sept. 29 are listed at 1,800 yuan ($250), compared with 680 yuan for Sept. 22. Long-haul international flights such as Shanghai-Sydney are also double or more than fares later in October. Higher fares to some degree reflect the growing popularity of some of China’s more far-flung destinations, made more appealing by the longer holiday, online travel agency Tongcheng said in a report. Places such as Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, Ningxia and Heilongjiang in the far northeast are among the most popular. There are more than 10 times the number of searches for Xinjiang-related travel packages than a year ago, according to the report.<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2023-09-26/general/millions-to-take-to-skies-as-china-gears-up-for-long-golden-week
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/logo.png
Millions to take to skies as China gears up for long Golden Week
After a strong summer, China’s travel market is about to get another boost as the Golden Week holiday arrives. More than 21m people are expected to take flights in the space of eight days — the equivalent of almost everyone in Australia getting on a plane in a little over a week. The Sept. 29-Oct. 6 holiday encompasses both Mid-Autumn festival and the National Day break, which doesn’t always happen as the date of the former depends on the lunar calendar. The extra day is a bonus after the population was essentially denied the opportunity to travel during the years of Covid-19. “More than 21m passengers will travel by air during the holiday period,” Jin Junhao, a deputy director at the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said at a briefing in Beijing on Sept. 15. Just domestically, there will be some 14,000 domestic flights a day, according to the regulator. With Chinese tourists racing to book flights, airfares are climbing — by more than double on some of the more popular routes. Air China economy-class tickets from Beijing to Chengdu on Sept. 29 are listed at 1,800 yuan ($250), compared with 680 yuan for Sept. 22. Long-haul international flights such as Shanghai-Sydney are also double or more than fares later in October. Higher fares to some degree reflect the growing popularity of some of China’s more far-flung destinations, made more appealing by the longer holiday, online travel agency Tongcheng said in a report. Places such as Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, Ningxia and Heilongjiang in the far northeast are among the most popular. There are more than 10 times the number of searches for Xinjiang-related travel packages than a year ago, according to the report.<br/>
