Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Holiday travel in China is hectic, to say the least, especially considering how the price of hotels, and air and train tickets usually increase by 20 percent in the month or so before.

cctv.com reports that Civil aviation authorities have predicted nearly 3.5 million people will travel over the next few days, a 15 percent increase from last year; and ctrip.com recently conducted a survey that indicated Chinese travelers plan to spend on average between RMB 3,000 to 7,000 this holiday season.

To accommodate the increased air traffic, 2,000 extra domestic flights have been added, but many flights to China’s most popular holiday destinations in Yunnan, Hainan and Sichuan have been already sold out (most respondents to the same ctrip plan to spend their holiday in Sichuan’s Chengdu and nearby Jiuzhaigou).

What’s worse, if you had trouble booking train tickets for the holiday, it could very well have been because they were snatched up by unscrupulous scalpers long before you even had a chance to consider your destination – which is good reason to cheer yesterday’s announcement of the biggest ever illegal internet train ticket scalper bust.

Xinhua reports that 225 tickets valued at over RMB 50,000 were seized from a single scalper, who marked the tickets up by amounts ranging from RMB 50 to 150 after buying them up the day before. And Beijing police have announced more crackdowns on “tourist-related crimes, pornography, gambling, drug taking, forced buying and selling, swindling, and maltreatment of tourists at scenic spots” will be enforced as the capital prepares to host an estimated 4.5 million visitors over the holiday week.

Spending the weekend (and all next week) working in the office might not be such a bad thing after all …

Links and Sources:
cctv.com: http://www.cctv.com/program/bizchina/20070928/101190.shtml
www.pacificepoch.com: http://www.pacificepoch.com/newsstories/106239_0_5_0_M/
www.chinadaily.com: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2007-09/03/content_6076776.htm
peoplesdaily.com: http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/6273870.html
china.org: http://www.china.org.cn/english/government/225536.htm
ebeijing.gov.cn: www.ebeijing.gov.cn/Tour/News/t279142.htm