China saw a more than 25% increase in domestic passenger traffic on the eve of the Lunar New Year, dates in which the country is paralyzed and millions of people take the opportunity to travel or visit their places of origin.
According to the state-run Xinhua agency, domestic passenger traffic increased 26.7% year-on-year on Friday, New Year's Eve, with 195.24 million trips throughout the transportation system.
(Also: When does the Chinese New Year start? We'll tell you).
Most of the traffic occurred on highways, with more than 184 million trips made that day alone.
Rail traffic roughly doubled to 8.2 million trips, while the number of people taking flights increased by 137.7% to reach 1.8 million, according to the agency.
Family reunion in China means that millions of people travel for tourism or return to their cities of origin: the authorities expect that this year there will be almost 9 billion trips for the period of 40 days known as “Chunyun”, in which trips are more frequent, which represents an increase of 40% compared to last year and a historical record.
Post-covid mass displacements
Meanwhile, the Ctrip travel agency, the largest in the country, stated on Saturday that reservations for this year's vacations have doubled: the trips are being massive because they are the first since China relaxed and then eliminated the severeThe “zero covid” strategy, which kept the country closed tightly and with extreme measures since the beginning of the pandemic.
Specifically, the most popular destinations nationwide for these holidays, which fall between February 10 and 17, are the warmest Chinese provinces, in the south, such as those of Hainan, Guangzhou and Yunnan, according to the agency, reports the South China Morning Post newspaper.
Others prefer to visit the frigid city of Harbin in the northeast of the country, where bookings have increased by 40% thanks to its popular ice sculpture festival.
Although some provinces took extreme precautionary measures in the face of the poor weather forecast, the country's Meteorological Network predicted on Saturday that the worst of the storm has already passed and that temperatures will increase in the coming days.
As for overseas travel, Ctrip says Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore are among the destinations most popular for Chinese tourists this holiday.
There have also been increases in travel to member countries of China's New Silk Roads initiative, with increases in travel to countries such as EUnited Arab Emirates, Turkey, Egypt, the Maldives, Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan.
This year's sign is the dragon.
Box office records in cinemas
Meanwhile, the annual Spring Festival television gala set a live broadcast record, with 1.689 million total views of the event, according to state broadcaster CGTN.
In cinemas, bookings between February 10 and 17 have already exceeded 2 billion yuan (280 million dollars), picks up the local press.
The film Pegasus 2 led the premieres on Saturday, grossing 416.23 million yuan (58.4 million U.S. dollars) on Saturday alone.
China yesterday welcomed the Lunar New Year with numerous celebrations, banquets and prayers to celebrate the arrival of the dragon, considered a symbol of power, vitality and good fortune in the eastern zodiac.
Images of dragons fill shop windows, doors and streets, in different modalities, in stores and in homes, to comply with the custom of hanging figures of the new sign, in this case a mythological animal revered in China.
EFE
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