Railway trips hit single-day high in China on first day of May Day holiday

China's railway network handled 20.69 million passenger trips on Wednesday, marking a record single-day high, according to the national railway operator China State Railway Group (CSRG).

Wednesday was the first day of this year's May Day holiday, which lasts from May 1 to 5.

A Ministry of Transport official said at a press conference on Monday that an average of 270 million trips through both private and public modes of transportation are anticipated during the holiday, adding that the intensity of mobility would surpass the levels seen in the corresponding periods in 2023 and pre-COVID 2019.

"We will spend our holiday in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. We've heard it's very beautiful and we are carrying lots of photography equipment to take pictures there," a passenger at Beijing Capital International Airport told CGTN on Wednesday.

Authorities at Beijing Capital International Airport told CGTN that during the five-day holiday, the airport is expected to handle over 918,000 passenger trips, a year-on-year increase of about 21 percent, and process more than 5,800 flights.

"It is expected that there will be a return peak on May 5, with about 207,000 passenger trips and also over 1,200 flights taking off or landing throughout the day," Cui Yali, assistant manager of Terminal Area Monitor and Control Center at Beijing Capital International Airport, told CGTN.

Shi Mengmeng, head of Aviation Development Sector at Beijing Capital International Airport, told CGTN that "some of the most popular travel destinations include Chengdu, Shanghai, Sanya and Hong Kong – as well as some cities in Japan and South Korea, such as Tokyo and Seoul."

Data from different travel platforms also show a rebound in outbound tourism from China during this May Day holiday.

The number of international ticket bookings departing on Wednesday increased by 20 percent compared with 2019, setting a new May Day record, according to data from online travel agency Qunar.

The data also showed ticket bookings to Saudi Arabia and Egypt in the Middle East increased by more than three times, and those to the United Arab Emirates, Türkiye and Qatar increased by more than 50 percent. In Europe, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Ireland, Spain and Croatia saw bookings double.

Domestic travel also saw a boom during the holiday. According to the 12306 ticket booking system, as of Wednesday morning, popular destinations and routes saw strong passenger flows. Those destinations included Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Chengdu. The popular routes included Beijing to Shanghai, Xi'an to Chengdu, and Guangzhou to Nanning.

It's estimated that the country's railways will handle 17 million passenger trips on Thursday, with 1,094 additional passenger trains planned.

The movie box office has also performed well during the holiday. As of 5:23 p.m. on Wednesday, the first-day box office of May Day 2024 reached 315 million yuan ($43.5 million), which exceeded the first-day box office of last year (314.9 million yuan), according to data from box office tracking and big data platform Lighthouse.