People crossing the border during the Spring Festival are advised to avoid Luohu and Huanggang checkpoints during peak hours.

The Luohu Checkpoint will be busiest for people crossing to Hong Kong between 3 pm and 5 pm and for people entering Shenzhen from 4 pm to 6 pm. At Huanggang, the number of people going to Hong Kong will peak between 2 pm and 3 pm and for people entering from 9 am to 11 am.

Checkpoint authorities said the two checkpoints processed 283,000 passengers Monday when a total of 515,000 people passed through checkpoints.

Checkpoints began to see remarkable rise in the number of tourist groups traveling to Hong Kong and Macao on Tuesday.

The latest figures released by the association for hotels in Hong Kong show that about 75 to 80 percent of Hong Kong hotels have been reserved. However, the Macao tourism bureau said occupancy rate for its hotels was relatively low, below 50 percent.

(Shenzhen Daily January 21, 2004)