China's week-long Spring Festival holiday brought with it a spike in travel as it came to an end on Saturday. According to data from the National Holiday Tourism Office, Beijing received 8.27 million visitors during the holiday, generating a revenue of CNY3.4 billion (US$538.5 million), an increase of 9.3% from the previous year. Around 3.14 million travellers went to Shanghai during the period, up 3.2% year-on-year, with tourism revenue up 10.4% to CNY2.96 billion.

Xinhua reports that self-driving tours have become increasingly popular among travellers. In the city of Tianjin, the ratio of people choosing to drive by themselves surged 35% year-on-year. Cross border shopping trips also sold well as an average of 10,000 people visited the duty-free shop in Sanya per day during the Spring Festival holiday.

Meanwhile, outbound trips continued to increase sharply. South Korea continued to grow in popularity among Chinese travellers. According to tourism authorities in Seoul, a total of 45,000 Chinese nationals visited during the holiday which represents an increase of over 30% from the same period last year.

Source: Travel Daily Asia