Many different areas across China, especially popular tourism sites, have been busy preparing for the forthcoming week-long peak tourist season starting May 1.

Officials with the Ministry of Communications estimated that some 280 million people would travel around the country during the week-long holiday.

Tourism officials in Beijing said that during May 1-7, more air flights and additional railway, subway and bus services will be available for tourists, while more parking lots will be opened at the most popular scenic sites such as the Great Wall.

In Chengde City, in north China's Hebei Province, where the Chengde Mountain Resort, one of China's major ancient imperial gardens, is located, tourism developers have completed a number of new programs to entertain tourists. New animals have been added to the zoo, environment-friendly battery-operated cars are ready for tourists to view the scenery in the mountains, and new entertainment programs on ice have been developed, among others.

Tourism authorities in Huangshan and Jiuhua mountains, two of China's most popular tourist attractions, have set up special tourism headquarters to ensure normal order during the holiday season.

Tourism officials pledged that preparations have been ready for adding air, train and bus services, and all tourists to the two mountains will be well accommodated in this year's May Day holiday season, as there will be 1,602 hotels and guest houses capable of accommodating more than 118,400 people daily.

Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province in south China, has prepared a wide range of well-selected tourist programs and a galaxy of cultural programs to entertain tourists.

Workers at Baiyun Airport in Guangzhou have conducted thorough checkups of various transport equipment, the control tower, the tarmac and the surroundings and worked out contingency countermeasures for possible changeable weather during the May Day holiday to ensure the safety of tourists and normal order of the tourism market.

Guilin, one of the most popular tourist destinations in south China, has added 58 flights to Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Fukuoka, Hong Kong, Chengdu, Xiamen, Nanning, Haikou, Tianjin, Hangzhou and Shantou during the week-long holiday.

Tourism officials said 80 percent of rooms in star-rated hotels in Guilin City have already been booked. It is estimated that in the holiday some 75,000 tourists will cruise on the Lijiang River in Guilin, which is famed for its green mountains, clear water and strangely shaped stone formations.

Jiangbei Airport in Chongqing, the largest industrial city on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, will offer more than 100 chartered flights at the request of travel agencies in the first week of May.

Days before the May Day holiday, the city organized an investment and trade fair and the Three Gorges International Tourism Festival, which has helped attract more tourists to the mountainous city and the Three Gorges downstream of the city.

In addition to a number of festivals featuring the folk customs of people from minority ethnic groups and a dozen selected tour programs, Guizhou Province near Chongqing has been ready to receive more in-bound special train service and chartered flights for the holiday, said local officials, adding that they will host 900,000 tourists in the seven-day holiday season.

In Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province, relevant departments have made concerted efforts to rectify the tourism market to standardize services, while local energy supply and transport departments have worked out countermeasures for emergency situations.

(People’s Daily 04/30/2001)