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BIZCHINA / Biz Life

Golden Weeks to continue

By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-04-25 09:27

A record 150 million people are expected to travel during the 20th Golden
Week (May 1-7), with the numbers of people traveling overseas and those
using their own cars to get to local attractions both expected to rise.

A government official said that despite the huge flow of people during
the Golden Weeks and the problems that causes, the holiday system would
remain for at least the next few years, because "there is still a lot of
potential to be explored".

Wang Kecheng of the National Bureau of Statistics, said: "The system has
contributed a lot to boosting domestic consumption and demand, which
makes its existence necessary."

He was speaking at a press conference attended by officials from 18
government departments.

Official statistics have shown that the past 19 Golden Weeks have
contributed 670 billion yuan ($86.7 billion) to the economy.

Zhang Xiqin, deputy director of the National Tourism Administration,
said: "With per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimated to keep
growing, there is a huge potential for tourism development during the
Golden Week holidays."

He said that developing tourism and expanding domestic consumption and
demand was good for the economy and the trade surplus, unlike investment,
"which is already overheated".

But the government's decision has not won the full support of the public.

In December, Cai Jiming, a member of the Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conference, suggested canceling the weeklong holidays in May
and October and replacing them with paid holidays. He also suggested
adding four more public holidays to mark traditional festivals.

Prior to Cai's comments, on October 16, a week after the National Day
holiday, an online poll conducted by sohu.com showed that 55 percent of
the 9,030 votes received were in favor of keeping the Golden Week holiday
system.

However, after Cai's suggestion was widely publicized on news websites in
December, public opinion swayed.

A similar poll conducted by sohu.com on December 7 showed that 65 percent
of the more than 40,000 votes were in favor of canceling the system.

Those in support of reforming the system reasoned that the existing
public services are insufficient to satisfy demand during the Golden
Weeks, so that standards of accommodation, travel and leisure are lowered.

Those in favor of the system said it ensures that every citizen received
a holiday. Without it, they said some groups would end up not getting any
rest, because the current legal system would be unable to protect them
from unscrupulous employers.

Zhang said the government is considering all possible holiday
alternatives and would present its findings soon.

Although, he said he personally doubts the benefit of adding a few
holidays or adopting the Western system of paid leave.

"The contradiction between supply and demand caused by the huge flow of
human traffic is hard to resolve, but it can be eased and that is what we
are doing."

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