Golden Week in China

The week-long holidays on May Day and National Day in china began in 2000, as a measure to increase and encourage holiday spending.

So the holiday is also called Golden Week.

Zhang Xiqing, Deputy Chief of the China National Tourism Administration says that the current "golden week" holiday system has a definite positive effect on the tourism market.

"Golden week holidays have stimulated public consumption and boosted the tourism market. It guarantees people the right to take a rest. "

There are three so-called "golden weeks" were introduced in 2000; they include the Spring Festival holiday, the May Labor Day holiday and the October national day holiday. Over the past 19 golden weeks, a total of more than 1.6 billion people took to the road creating income of around 670 billion CNY.

However the 'golden week' holidays have, in recent years, come in for some criticism including the claim that they put too much pressure on the environment, tourist services and public security in short concentrated periods.

Zhang Xiqing says government departments are considering various proposals to improve the current holiday system.

"In order to ease the pressure of the concentrated travel, we may introduce more golden weeks, break down the week-long vacation into parts, or introduce flexible paid holidays a year. These measures are all under consideration."