Holiday Ups and Downs

This past Golden Week saw record spending, but not everyone was happy By Zhou Xiaoyan

China has once again astonished the world with the massive spending power of its domestic travelers. During the weeklong National Day holiday, dubbed the Golden Week, which ran from October 1 to 7 this year,a record number of Chinese spent record amounts on everything from food and clothing to travel. But the growing consumption frenzy during the holiday period has given birth to the term “golden mess” due to chaotic traf fi c and overcrowded tourist spots. Many are calling on government at all levels to fi nd ways to create a more stress-free travel experience.

Consumption takes off

What did middle-class Chinese do to kill time during the long-anticipated Golden Week? Eat,shop and travel.

Sales revenues of China’s catering and retail sectors reached 870 billion yuan ($142 billion)during the holiday, rising 13.6 percent year-onyear, according to the Ministry of Commerce(MOFCOM). With countless wedding banquets,family reunions and friend gatherings during the holiday, the country’s catering sector raked in exorbitant pro fi ts during the Golden Week.

Golden Week is a popular time for weddings and banquets because of the seven days many Chinese have off work. This resulted in a windfall for hotels and restaurants, which are often booked a year in advance. A key grouping of 121 hotels in Shanghai hosted 23,000 tables of wedding dinners during the holiday, according to the MOFCOM.

High-end restaurants offered discounts and inexpensive options in line with the country’s frugality campaign. Haidilao, a popular hot pot chain, recorded a 45-percent year-on-year revenue increase during the holiday, according to the MOFCOM.

Department stores throughout China carried out a wide range of discounts to lure shoppers. During the week, sales revenue of key department stores in Hainan, Liaoning, Shaanxi and Anhui provinces grew by nearly 20 percent compared to last year.

Gold jewelry was in high demand. Sales at Shanghai Laomiao Gold and Beijing Cai Bai Gold Store grew by 55 percent and 16 percent,respectively. Online shopping also enjoyed rocketing growth. Sales on Suning.com, a shopping site owned by China’s major home appliance seller of the same name, increased 60 percent year on year during the past holiday.

Better-off Chinese citizens, however, were not content with celebrating the holiday simply with shopping and eating. They used the long-awaited holiday for travel. The number of passengers taking air transportation during the holiday rose 15.8 percent year on year to about 7.7 million passengers, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).About 4,000 extra flights were added to the country’s most popular destinations during the week, according to the CAAC. A considerable number of fl ights, however, were suspended to ensure passenger safety following the landing of TyphoonFitow.

As above, so below. Over 70 million passengers took to railways, another record,according to the China Railway Corp. The roads,too, were packed bumper-to-bumper thanks to the Chinese Government lifting highway tolls. Roughly 601 million passengers hit the road during the Golden Week, according to the Ministry of Transport, close to half the nation’s population.

Chinese tourists made 428 million domestic trips, an increase of 15.1 percent year on year, according to the China National Tourism Administration. Tourism revenue surged 21.2 percent from the same period a year ago to 223.3 billion yuan ($36.02 billion). Averaged spending reached 521 yuan ($85). China’s 125 major scenic areas received 31.25 million tourists; revenue from admission tickets hit 1.66 billion yuan ($271.2 million).

Robust holiday spending falls in line with the Central Government’s plans to shift the world’s second largest economy away from dependence on investment and exports and toward domestic consumption. “The strong Golden Week tourism data suggest stable employment, rising wages and robust consumer con fi dence,” Lu Ting and Robbie Li, China economists with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said in a research note.

Tackling a ‘golden mess’

Despite the record spending, many Chinese people found themselves even more exhausted than usual as they battled large crowds at some of the country’s most prized scenic and cultural spots.

Tourists could only inch forward on the Great Wall just outside Beijing. At the West Lake in Hangzhou, capital of east China’s Zhejiang Province, only heads could be seen as visitors walked over the lake’s many bridges. And elbowroom was scarce at one of China’s most famous sites, the Terra Cotta Warriors in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province. The roads were no better. Travel clog made some highways look like super-sized parking lots.

SPENDING SPREE: Customers line up outside a Burberry shop in an outlet mall in suburban Tianjin on October 5

With all the discomfort and complaints,why do Chinese still choose to travel during this seemingly unbearable occasion?

Liu Simin with the Tourism Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has some idea.

“A lack of long holidays and a poorly implemented paid leave policy will inevitably lead to over-crowdedness during the Golden Week.”

But tourist numbers weren’t the only dark cloud over Golden Week: So were bad manners.Vandalism and messy behavior were rampant during the week, despite the government’s new Tourism Law, which came into effect on October 1 and states that travelers can be fi ned for littering or causing damage to tourism property. For instance, more than 100,000 visitors who watched the Tiananmen Square fl ag-raising ceremony on October 1, the National Day,left behind 5 tons of garbage. After more than 1 million tourists visited West Lake in Hangzhou,volunteers picked up more than 7,000 cigarette butts on a 1.5-km road alongside the lake.

A source from the Shandong tourism authority toldShandong Business Dailythat not a single fi ne was issued during the holiday in the province.

“Although the Tourism Law came into effect during this year’s National Day holiday,it hasn’t been very well carried out,” he said.“There are several obstacles. First, it’s hard to fi nd those responsible for littering and graffi ti as travelers are constantly on the move.Second, staff at scenic sites are extremely busy. They don’t have time to look into bad tourist behavior. Moreover, the law doesn’t offer tourism workers the power to issue tickets and fi nes. We would have to coordinate with other authorities before punishing uncivilized behavior. That takes time.”

Liu Zhongquan, a professor in sociology at the Dalian University of Technology, said the Tourism Law is more of a guideline for civilized travel behavior and less of a means to punish those who show poor etiquette.

“Uncivilized behaviors can be divided into a lot of types,” says Liu. “Some should be punished by the law and others should be guided by morality. To reduce uncivilized travel behavior, the government should first differentiate between the two.”