The golden week of the Spring Festival saw the nationwide total retailing value of consuming goods to hit RMB 160 billion yuan as the reporter learned from the Ministry of Commerce on 15 February 2005. It is an increase of around 16 percent as against that of the Spring Festival of last year, of which the catering business saw an increase of over 20 percent.

The prices for meats, vegetables witnessed a rise of 5-8 percent while the prices of rice, wheat flour, edible oil, egg and milk remained basically stable. As introduced by Huang Hai, Assistant to Minister of the Ministry of Commerce, it has witnessed a flourishing and brisk market in the Spring Festival of the year of the roaster.

The market featured five new major characteristics: first of all, to saunter along streets and do shopping has turned out a new way for people to get together for leisure seeking and amusement with commercial centers crowded with people in medium and large cities.

The second is that the supermarket has taken place of the rural market, becoming major places for buying foodstuffs. The malls and large supermarkets in various places have not only been opened for business but also prolonged their business hours during the Spring Festival. Many families have changed their conventional customs of the past and buy what they want to buy for use in the festival days and so it has witnessed a great increase of customer flows in supermarkets.

The third is that in the consumption style, people pay more attention to individuality, brand and fashion. The fashionable apparels of famous brands, jewelries and gold tinsels and other articles have become the spotlights for sales.

The fourth is that the consumption on meals has gone out from families with the catering business to become brisker than before. During the golden week the catering business in Beijing has seen an increase of 27 percent in its business turnover as against the same period before with those old brand-name restaurants to realize an increase of some 64 percent.

And the fifth is that the mascot of the roaster year has seen on big sales reflecting a rich cultural atmosphere.

Tourism in golden week of the Spring Festival

The news of 15 February 2005 from Beijing has it that the last day of the golden week of the Spring Festival saw places everywhere begin to count up the tourism outcome in the Spring Festival Days.

Judging from the situation of tour repairs in some large cities the tourist markets witnessed a brisk business in the golden week of the Spring Festival. Beijing hosted a total number of 2.04 million domestic tourists with an earning of RMB 1.83 billion yuan, featuring respectively an increase of 3 percent and 10 percent as against the same period of last year. During the 7 days, Nanjing received a total of 1.66 million tourists from other places, a rise of 13.7 percent over that of last year with an earning of RMB 1.25 billion yuan hitting a record high of the city in the golden week.

In Shenzhen, the turnstile-count from the border control told 190,000 passengers, an accumulated increase of 19 percent. Tianjin registered a tourist arrival of 1.132 million person/times from other areas and the city-dwellers going to other places numbered 944,000 person/times.

The Spring Festival saw a rich and colorful tourist activities conducted everywhere in China. Beijing held a total of 21 temple fairs of medium and large scale, remaining as brisk as before. It has also conducted five ice and snow festivals all told with 9 skiing grounds put into operation.

The number of outbound tour for Beijing residents counted on 32,000 person/times, an increase of 15.4 percent over the same period. The outbound tourists organized by travel agencies from Suzhou came to a total of 2,187 person/times, an increase of 63.2 percent as compared to that before. And in the Spring Festival, Shanghai saw a bursting market of self-driving tours out from the city with the counts by the freeway exits along Shanghai/Nanjing, Shanghai/Hangzhou and Shanghai/Jiaxing added up to 354,500 auto/times, an increase of 18.8 percent as against that of the same period before.

(People's Daily February 17, 2005)