The tally of tourist arrivals in the first golden week of the Year of the Tiger has been released. According to major travel agencies in Guangzhou, the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday was the first peak travel season in 2010, with remarkable upsurges in the numbers of local people traveling to other cities and provinces and foreign countries. The number of tourists and the amount of tourist revenues both reached record highs, up about forty percent year-on-year, and the average spending of the tourists nearly doubled.
The opening of the high-speed rail link between Guangzhou and Wuhan added fuel to Guangzhou folks' enthusiasm for sightseeing tours. Hubei and Hunan turned out to be the two most popular tourist destinations for Guangzhou people during the holidays.
Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou took the top three spots on the list of the most popular tourist cities during the holidays, which was published at Ctrip.com on February 19. Guangzhou's popularity among domestic tourists rose significantly.
