China's Spring Festival travel rush: Trains, airplanes most popular
By Yang Chengxi
["china"]
01:52
We are approaching the biggest annual human migration, namely the Spring Festival travel rush. Advances in travel infrastructure in China in recent years have made this trip back home much more pleasant for many people.
Well, it's that time of year again for us Chinese. After a whole year of hard work, we treat ourselves to a trip back to our hometowns. Many choose the railway for this special journey. In 2018, China added 4000 kilometers of new lines, and the majority of them are for high-speed trains. Reports suggest that more than half of all passengers are able to travel back home within just 12 hours.
And some of them will be traveling on board sleek new trains too. The latest model, which hit the tracks just this month, is twice as long as the regular eight-car model, carrying up to 1283 passengers per trip. That's a much-needed feature for the holiday rush. Several new models with different upgrades are in the pipeline this year.
Also, a lot of people choose to fly home as well, and as you can imagine, tickets are hard to get. People are strongly advised to buy in advance, even as early as eight weeks prior for certain popular flight routes.
Data suggest, however, that not all people are flying home. About half the flyers are traveling elsewhere for the holiday. Popular tourist destinations worldwide are expected to see an influx of Chinese holiday-makers during this period. Some 6.5 million Chinese people traveled overseas last year, and in 2019, we are expected to see more Chinese tourists visiting abroad.