China's highways carried 227 million passengers during the past Spring Festival holiday week, when millions of Chinese moved for family gatherings and tourist trips.

 

The number of travelers rose 11.6 percent from the same period of last year, with the passenger flow exceeding 50 million per day on Friday and Saturday, when most Chinese started to return from travels, said the Ministry of Communications.

 

This year's Spring Festival holiday week runs from Feb. 18, China's Lunar New Year, to Feb. 25.

 

The peak continued on Sunday, when 62.8 million passengers were estimated to move by highway, 23 percent up year on year, according to the ministry.

 

The highway division of the ministry said a major part of the passenger flow were rural migrant workers traveling from inland provinces like Henan, Jiangxi, Sichuan and Anhui to Beijing, Tianjin and major cities in the booming eastern and southern coastal regions.

 

The government has made 24-hour highway traffic information available on the Internet and provided weather forecast for highway travelers.

 

Meanwhile, latest official figures show tourist areas around the country received 92.2 million visitors in the holiday week, 17.7 percent more than the same period of last year.

 

Tourism brought the country 43.8 billion yuan (US$5.48 billion) of revenues in the holiday, 19 percent up year on year.

 

During the holiday, the daily average passenger flow on railways hit a record high, reaching 3.75 million, according to the Ministry of Railways.

 

In the period, 5 million passengers traveled by water, 6 percent up year on year, while the country's airlines carried 3.71 million passengers, a surge of 21 percent.

 

(Xinhua News Agency February 26, 2007)