Chinese government's decision to extend the May Day holiday to four days has greatly spurred tourism in May, according to online travel agency Ctrip. Trip searches and orders surged by about 50 percent on its mobile app after the State Council announced the extension of May Day holiday on Friday.

The company estimated that about 150 million trips will be made during the period, with notable growth in domestic and regional trips. Thailand, Japan and Indonesia are expected to be popular overseas travel destinations during the holiday, while Chongqing, Hangzhou and Shanghai are hot domestic tourism cities.

Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Academy, said from 1999 to 2008 the May Day holiday used to be seven days. Since 2009, it's been adjusted into a three-day break with about 147 million trips made during last year's holiday.

Tourist numbers and travel revenue are expected to see a year-on-year rise of 8 and 9 percent, respectively, in the forthcoming four-day break, said Dai.

He said that Chinese residents have a total of 11 public holiday days in a year, ranking 33rd globally. Some measures are suggested to be taken to develop new forms of tourism, such as night tourism, to better tap the potential of the holiday tourism economy.

(With inputs from Xinhua, China Daily)