Duanwu Festival holiday expected to see 687 million passenger trips across China

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The upcoming Duanwu Festival holiday, running from Saturday to Monday, is expected to see 687 million cross-regional passenger trips across China, up 7.7 percent year on year, according to the Ministry of Transport.

The Duanwu Festival, also known as the Dragon Boat Festival, falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar. It will be celebrated on Saturday (May 31) this year.

The ministry said that self-driving travelers will represent a large proportion of all travelers during the holiday, with the expressways to serve a daily average of 40.7 million vehicles, 98 percent of which are passenger cars.

The road network will be busier and busier from 16:00 Friday and enter the pre-holiday rush hours from 19:00 to 21:00.

For the railway travel rush from Friday to Tuesday, trains across China are expected to serve 80.5 million passenger trips. The railways will see a peak of 18.3 million passenger trips on Saturday.

As the Duanwu Festival holiday this year overlaps the Children's Day, it heralds a significant increase of short-distance self-driving tours and family trips. Meanwhile, dragon boat races and other intangible cultural heritage activities will bring an influx of travelers to popular tourist cities and their surrounding areas.

"It is expected that the four major city clusters, namely the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and, the Chengdu-Chongqing region, will become popular with travelers. Cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Chengdu will see vigorous tourism, which will drive the growth of tourist consumption, form a short-term holiday consumption boom and highlight the new vitality of the holiday economy," said Xin Minglun, deputy director of the Transport Service Department of the Ministry of Transport.

Duanwu Festival holiday expected to see 687 million passenger trips across China

The Global Mayors Dialogue opened in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province on Tuesday, bringing together mayors and senior city officials from across Europe, Asia, and North America to have in-depth exchanges on practical approaches to developing the ice and snow economy.

Held under the theme "Connecting the World with Ice and Snow, Win-Win Cooperation for a Shared Future", the three-day event gathered mayors, deputy mayors, and mayoral representatives from cities across the globe, including Canada, Finland, Germany, Greece, the Republic of Korea, Thailand, and Türkiye, focusing on the ice and snow economy, cultural integration, smart city development, heritage preservation, and urban governance.

The event featured a main dialogue and a scenario-based dialogue salon to foster in-depth exchanges and spark new ideas. Guests are invited to visit iconic sites such as the Harbin Ice and Snow World and attend the opening ceremony and trade events of the Harbin Ice and Snow Economy Expo, which are showcasing Harbin's achievements in building an ice and snow economy brand, strengthening international exchanges and cooperation, and inheriting ice and snow culture.

Harbin, called China's "ice city", has turned its long, cold winters into a major tourist attraction. Last winter, it welcomed a record 90.36 million visitors, generating 137.22 billion yuan (about 19.44 billion U.S. dollars) in revenue, a year-on-year increase of 16.6 percent.

International mayors gather in Harbin to explore ice and snow economy