Friday 6 March 2009

May Day ‘golden week’ gets nod

Beijing will allow local authorities to reinstate the week-long May Day holiday in an effort to stimulate tourism spending.

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Guanyu said...

May Day ‘golden week’ gets nod

Chloe Lai in Guangzhou
6 March 2009

Beijing will allow local authorities to reinstate the week-long May Day holiday in an effort to stimulate tourism spending.

National Tourism Administration spokesman Liu Xiaojun said local governments could extend the holiday if their economies needed stimulus measures, although the central government had no plan to do so.

The five-day May Day holiday was shortened to three days last year, while three traditional festivals - Ching Ming, Dragon Boat and Mid-Autumn - were created.

Public sentiment has been high recently for Beijing to extend the May Day holiday to encourage more people to spend.

A Web survey on the debate that was conducted between February 3 and 9 recorded 276,430 votes, in which 91.2 per cent wanted to see a “golden week” holiday in May.

Late last month, Guangdong announced a travel scheme in which it promoted travel coupons and encouraged people to attach some of their annual leave to public holidays, such as May Day.

In a revised version of the May Day “golden week” holiday, employers in Guangdong were asked to encourage the holiday arrangement if workers were in favour.

Li Jianxun, a deputy of the Guangdong Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and a finance professor at Guangdong University of Business Studies, supported the decision, saying it would boost consumer spending in bad times.

“But it should not be done at the expense of traditional holidays,” she said. “No traditional holidays should be scrapped. The holidays are to remind us of our culture and tradition.”

Penny Ou, an assistant manager of Guangdong’s Nanhiu International Travel Service, remained cautious about the impact of Guangong’s revised holiday arrangement.

“We will have special packages to attract people to travel to Beijing or some overseas countries, such as Thailand and Singapore, because they have longer holidays. But we are not sure how big the impact is going to be because it is not compulsory. Employers would not like to see all employees going on holidays.”

Until last year the mainland had three “golden weeks”, centred on the Lunar New Year, May Day and National Day. The week-long holidays were introduced in October 1999.

Nineteen “golden week” holidays between October 1, 2000, and 2006 encouraged people to travel and helped generate 670 billion yuan (HK$760,800) in tourism revenue, Xinhua reported. But the seemingly profitable plan has been criticised for creating peak travel seasons resulting in transport and hotel logjams.

Tourists complained of poor service and low-quality travel experiences, while preservationists voiced concern about possible permanent damage to major heritage sites, prompting Beijing to adjust the “golden week” arrangement.