On October 2nd, a Weibo user posted a few travel pictures showing traffic jams on a famous travel attraction Huangshan (Yellow Mountain), along with a description that "the most regretful thing I have done in my life is to visit Huangshan during National Golden Week."
The post immediately went viral on China's most popular social media platform, and received more than 400 comments.
"We lined up at 5am and waited for two hours to get on the tour bus up to the destination. After climbing upto the mountain, we keep walking and then lined up for more than an hour in the cableway." She said in an phone call interview while she was still trapped on the mountain.
"People are stick to each other, I can't move." @WangyanIvy added.
It takes only 20 minutes to get down the mountain by cable car, but she needs to wait 2-3 hours to get on the cable car.
A Weibo user posted a few travel pictures showing traffic jams on a famous travel attraction Huangshan, shows heavy traffic during China's busy travel season.
The complaint has caused enthusiastic comments and support from other social media users. Some people shared their similar experiences in other attractions, others complained about highway traffic jams and train passengers.
One user shared that, in the same day a large number of tourists were stranded in a scenic spot of Lushan, another famous mountain area in Jiangxi Province. It is reported that more than 3,000 tourists were waiting for sightseeing cars for up to 4 hours.
In the comment some users said that they would not choose to travel on National Golden Week holiday, as what they could see won't be the scenery, but the back of other tourists.
Initially citizens can enjoy a three-day during National Day holiday, but since 2000 Chinese government has adjusted it to seven days. Since then, the number of tourists continuously increase due to length of the holiday and good weather of early autumn.
According to a report released by China Tourism Research Institute, the domestic tourism market of 2017 National Golden Week received 710 million trourists, a year-on-year increase of 10%; outbound tourists exceeded 6 million times; half of Chinese spent long holidays on travel.
While China's long-term holiday system has stimulated consumption and expanded domestic demand, it has also brought about some negative effects, such as the rapid increase in short-term costs of businesses, the significant decline in the quality of services, the increase in government's public administration costs, and tremendous damage to the natural landscapes and historical cultural relics.
In terms of transportation, the number of traffic accidents has increased significantly due to the surge in travel. Statistics show that during the Golden Week period from September 30 to October 7, 2012, there were 68,422 road traffic accidents and 2,164 road traffic accidents involving casualties, resulting in 794 deaths, 2,473 injuries, and 1.93 million dollar direct property damage. That is, during this period, an average of 99.25 people died from traffic accidents every day.
In response to the blowout of tourists during the National Day holiday, many tourist attractions have obviously responded inadequately. For example, although the Gulangyu scenic spot in Xiamen had prepared for the peak of passenger flow in advance and issued an early warning message, it still shows that its current-limiting and diversion scheme is not in place during the tour. From September 30th to October 7th, 2012, Gulangyu, a small island with an area of 1.88 square kilometers and about 10,000 residents, ushered in a record of 720,000 visitors, greatly surpassing its carrying capacity. The security of the scenic spot and the travel security system are under pressure.
At present, the China Tourism Administration and the Transportation Bureau have not released statistics of tourists market for the 2018 National Day Golden Week holiday. Huangshan District has not issued an official response to complaints from netizens.
