China's Great Wall of tourists: Beijing eyes holiday reforms to reduce overcrowding
'Wish you weren't all here': National Tourism Administration suggests dividing holidays into two categories - national and local - so China's millions of travellers need not all visit tourist spots at the same time
More than 750 million trips are expected on the roads and rails this National Day holiday, with the train system already handling more passengers in one day than at the peak of the Lunar New Year rush, transport authorities said.
To ease traffic congestion and overcrowding at tourist attractions, a new study by commissioned by the mainland tourism regulator has suggested that Beijing let local governments set their own public holidays.
Roughly 12.5 million train journeys were taken on the first day of the holiday - a record for trips on a single day, according to railway operator China Railway.
The company expected a 10 per cent yearly increase in the number of train trips taken over the "golden week".
The average number of trips made by train during the holiday has already exceeded the number taken on the busiest day of the Lunar New Year travel season, which is dubbed as the world's largest annual human migration.
On the highways, more than 650 million journeys are expected to be made over the holiday week. About four in five vehicles on the highways were sedans, the Ministry of Transport said.
