Hong Kong is the destination of choice for most mainland
travelers this Christmas, a survey has found.
Forty-four percent of the 2,000 people polled, all of whom have
an annual income of more than 60,000 yuan (US$8,000), said they
were planning to visit the region over the festive period.
Other popular destinations included Shanghai (10 percent), Sanya
in Hainan Province (9 percent), Lijiang in Yunnan Province, Bali in
Indonesia, Phuket in Thailand and Harbin in Heilongjiang
Province.
Conducted by the online travel firm ctrip.com, the survey found
people were most interested in places with a "strong holiday
atmosphere", "good shopping environment" and "excellent hotels and
beaches" when choosing a destination for their Christmas
getaway.
Tang Yibo, director of Ctrip.com's holiday department, said:
"Embodying both Eastern and Western cultures, Hong Kong stands out
because it has not only a vibrant Christmas atmosphere, but also
offers lots of shopping and entertainment facilities, and big
discounts at this time of year."
The convenience of traveling between the mainland and Hong Kong
is also an important factor, Tang said.
Lin Nan, a teacher from Shanghai, who sets off on a three-day
trip to Hong Kong this weekend, said: "The pre-Christmas discounts
in Hong Kong are irresistible, even when you consider what you have
to pay to fly there."
Lin Kang, deputy general manager of the outbound tourism
department of the China International Travel Service Head Office,
said tour packages to Hong Kong are always bestsellers at
Christmas.
He said the reason was that Chinese do not have much time off
work at Christmas and the New Year so they cannot travel too
far.
"When it comes to the weeklong Spring Festival holiday,
destinations like Europe will be more popular," he said.
Packages for the Spring Festival are now available, he said,
with some of them to Australia and New Zealand already sold
out.
Some travel experts have said the high volume of holiday
bookings for this year's Spring Festival is due to the cancellation
of the May Day holiday.
But Lin disagreed, saying it is still too early to judge the
impact of the changes to the national holiday schedule. Outbound
tours during the Spring Festival holiday are always easy to sell,
he said.
The cost of tour packages during the spring holiday will, as
usual, be at least 20 percent higher than at other times of the
year, he said.
Zhang Wei, director of the air ticket department of Ctrip.com,
said the cost of air travel to Europe, Australia and North America
over the Christmas and New Year holidays has also soared.
He said the cheapest one-way ticket from Beijing to London is
now 3,320 yuan, up from 2,200 yuan at the start of the year.
Zhang said the price hikes are due to the high numbers of
foreigners flying home for the festive season, and also the
increased popularity of group trips offered as staff incentives by
some Chinese firms.
(China Daily December 19, 2007)