The seven-day holiday that ended on Sunday leaves many to wonder how to spend vacation days so one can best enjoy the leisure time.

It is the 17th such weeklong holiday since the first one was initiated around National Day of October 1 in 1999.

The number of trips made by tourists has climbed up to a new high and so has the income from the tourism industry.

Yet, the pleasure the revellers have expected to seek from their sightseeing trips has been offset by over-crowding at the nation's scenic spots, difficulties in finding a nice place to stay for the night, getting decent food in acceptable restaurants, obtaining train or airline tickets for the trip back or fighting traffic jams.

These holidays still have much to be lauded, especially when looking how much holiday-makers' spending drives up the economy. But the quality of these holidays should be measured by whether the revellers make the most of their leisure time.

For many scenic spots, the swarms of tourists were far beyond handling capacities.

It was reported that some tourists had to sleep on the streets in the city of Guilin in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. They may have wished they had spent their leisure time back at home, going to local museums, reading books or getting together with their friends or relatives.

Yet, with such a large population of 1.3 billion, there is always a large proportion who have the desire to enjoy the glimpse of well-known hotspots they have never seen before.

Official statistics suggest that 70 percent of tourists were seeing many scenic spots for the first time during the most recent holiday.

Tourism will certainly generate handsome economic benefits for many localities during such holidays in the near future.

In addition, the number of overseas trips by holiday-makers has been climbing in recent years, with some 10 million travelling abroad last year. This will add to the income of tourism industry.

On the part of governments at various levels, more coordination is needed to swap information in a timely manner to give tourists warnings so that over-crowding can be avoided.

Yet, it goes without saying that many will opt to enjoy their leisure time in other ways during these long holidays. Because of that, more cultural facilities such as community libraries, entertainment centres, museums or playgrounds are needed to meet the growing needs of these residents.

Holiday-makers need to gather as much information as possible about the places they plan to go in advance to make decisions in a more sensible way.

(China Daily May 9, 2006)