Rise of China’s consumers drives tourist frenzy

October 3, 2013 7:40 am

Rise of China’s consumers drives tourist frenzy

By Simon Rabinovitch in Shanghai and Lucy Hornby in Beijing

With China’s highways snarled by traffic, thousands of tourists stranded at one of the country’s beloved national parks and millions more crushing into its most popular attractions, there is little question that the Chinese nation is once again on holiday. Early government estimates are that thisNational Day holiday week, which began on Tuesday, will be a record for the country in terms of domestic visitor numbers and tourism revenue, with both up about 20 per cent compared with the same period 12 months earlier.Tourism records have become par for the course in China: stronger numbers have been posted year after year over the past half decade. But economists say that the regularity of this phenomenon should in no way diminish its significance, because it underlines the strength of consumption growth and the resilience of consumer confidence in China.

Lu Ting, an economist with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said the tourism frenzy suggested the Chinese economy was on solid footing despite concerns about a renewed downturn after weaker-than-expected manufacturing figures. With consumption holding up so well, China is “unlikely to see a sharp slowdown,” he said in a note to clients. Strong tourism numbers pointed to “stable employment, rising wages and robust consumer confidence”, he added.

Yet that is little consolation for Chinese visitors who have flocked to the nation’s main tourist destinationsonly to find them bursting to capacity – and beyond.

Many Chinese get most of their vacation time during the “golden weeks” when the whole nation is on holiday, and the press of crowds pushes up hotel rates and inevitably pressures infrastructure. With more people spending more money on travel every year, the crush has steadily got worse.

In Jiuzhaigou, a national park in the southwestern province of Sichuan, thousands of tourists were stuck in a 400-bus jam trying to make their exit. Frustrated by the delay, some stormed the park’s ticket office and demanded refunds. Paramilitary police were deployed to control the crowds and hundreds of tourists ended up walking out of Jiuzhaigou after dark.

A series of other parks also suffered severe overcrowding. The national tourism administration said there had been problems throughout China, from Laoshan in the northeastern province of Shandong to Fanjing mountain in the southwestern province of Guizhou and Yuntai mountain in the central province of Henan.

Scores of complaints from visitors prompted the tourism administration to issue a warning. “All scenic areas must strictly control crowds, strengthen contingency plans and step up their patrols,” it said. It also called on local officials to “protect the legal rights of tourists”.

All scenic areas must strictly control crowds, strengthen contingency plans and step up their patrols

– Tourism administration warning

It wasn’t just China’s mountains that were clogged. Nearly 1m people visited Beijing’s top tourist sites on Wednesday, with 175,000 of them crowding into the Forbidden City in the centre of old Beijing. In Hangzhou, just outside Shanghai, more than 1m people filled the promenades around West Lake on Wednesday, a single-day record.

Overall, there were 8.4m tourists at China’s 125 most-visited tourist sites over the first two days of the National Day holiday week, up 19 per cent from a year earlier, according to the national tourism administration. Revenue at these sites was up 27 per cent year on year, reaching Rmb437m ($71.4m).

Amid the frustration and anger at the overcrowding, there were at least improvements in some areas. On Tuesday, the first day of the holiday, the 110,000 people who visited Tiananmen Square left behind 5 tonnes of garbage. “Not a historic high,” commented the Beijing Youth Daily, which noted that last year, 8 tonnes of garbage were generated. The record was 20 tonnes, in 2010.