South China's Hainan and east China's Fujian recorded booming passenger trips by waterway during the eight-day National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday which concluded on Wednesday.
In Hainan, water tourism remained popular throughout the holiday in Sanya, a famous tourist destination in the island province, recording 12,800 passenger vessel trips transporting more than 420,000 passengers by 18:00 Wednesday.
On the final day of the holiday, the Qiongzhou Strait, which separates Guangdong Province from Hainan Island, saw a surge in the number of returning travelers.
By 18:00 Wednesday, more than 580,000 passengers and 150,000 vehicles had safely crossed the strait, with a single-day peak of 116,000 passengers entering and exiting the Hainan island.
To cope with the heavy return flows amid the impacts of Typhoon Matmo, local maritime authorities have coordinated with local shipping firms to enhance transport capacity to evacuate stranded passengers and vehicles.
Meanwhile, coastal waterways in Fujian handled nearly 1.5 million passenger trips from Oct 1 to 7, up 54.1 percent year on year, according to the province's Maritime Safety Administration.
Among them, the four "Mini Three Links" routes between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan transported 43,400 passengers, marking a year-on-year increase of over 239 percent.
The port city of Xiamen handled over 961,000 passenger trips, accounting for around 64 percent of Fujian's total maritime passenger transport volume. Night cruises gained popularity in Fujian during the holiday, as enthusiastic tourists on ships enjoy urban nightscapes under the autumn breeze.
In Fuzhou, capital of Fujian, over 20,000 visitors joined night cruises along the Minjiang River which flows through the city in the first seven days of the holiday, representing a year-on-year increase of more than 494 percent.
Hainan, Fujian see robust waterway passenger traffic during holiday
