Swamped: Tourists Swarm the Capital

Paul Pennay | Oct 6, 2008 9:00 am | 1 comment | 2195 reads

Those who took advantage of the seven-day break to escape the capital will be pleased to know that they also managed to avoid the crowds. As anyone who remained in town can affirm, Beijing witnessed a huge influx of domestic tourists over the Golden Week. According to the Beijing Tourism Administration (BTA) 8.02 million people visited Beijing’s major tourists sites between Sep 29 and Oct 5. Of this number, 2.35 million visitors were from out of town. Xinhua reports that the hordes spent more than 5.25 billion yuan (USD 767 million), up 27% on last year. The number of visitors no doubt came as a relief for hotels and other tourist-dependent industries, as, due to the influence of the Olympics, the number of visitors to the capital has been down in the first 8 months of the year. According to AFP:

In the first eight months of 2008, 2.53 million overseas tourists checked into Beijing hotels, down 8.9 per cent from a year ago, the paper said. During the same period, 8.1 million domestic travellers checked into the capital's hotels, down 3.8 per cent over the first eight months of 2007, it added.

Tourist numbers were up by more than 30% with the Olympic venues proving a popular choice. As of noon on Oct 5, 2.42 million people had wandered the Olympic Green with the numbers peaking on Oct 2 when 527,000 people visited the Olympic Center. The Olympic Center was the most popular choice of the main tourist sites, accounting for over 25% of the total number of visits to all of Beijing’s 21 most popular tourist sites.

According to the Beijing News, Beijing ate RMB 115 million worth of food, a 53.6% increase on last year.

Beijing parks saw almost 3 million visitors over the seven-day break. The Summer Palace (Yiheyuan) proved the most popular with 443,900 visitors. The Altar of Heavan (Tiantan) attracted 353,300, Beihai Park 229,700 and Fragrant Hills (Xiangshan) about 200,000.

The amount of rubbish collected in Tiananmen Square was less than half of that collected in previous years. This year only 38.75 tons of waste was swept up, down from the 80 tons that was disposed of last year.

Despite the fact that only 20% of the stores on Qianmen Dajie are actually open, the Qing Dynasty Disney still managed to attract more than a million tourists over the National Holiday. According to the Legal Mirror, the newly unveiled Qianmen Dajie proved a bit too much for some with more than 50 kids and elderly citizens getting separated from their family during the first 4 days of the holiday
. Over in Tiananmen Square, new security measures seem to have had a positive effect on the number of people getting lost, on the first day of the holidays only 73 people got lost down from last year's 1576.

The Forbidden City received 625,000 visitors, 78 percent more than the same period last year.

396,000 people clambered over each other out at the Badaling section of the Great Wall, an increase of 58 percent.

The Olympic draw card enabled Beijing to maintain it’s mantle as one of the top choices for domestic travelers during the holidays, but the week-long National Day holiday also saw record number of tourists nationwide. According to Xinhua: