Shanghai: Group Tours Drop during "Golden Week"

Zhang Huizhu, director of the overseas department of Shanghai China Intl Travel Service Ltd., attributes the tourist decrease to the shortage of international plane tickets and difficulties with visa applications, which have discouraged many travel services from organizing large-scale charter-plane tour groups.

Compared with the cool-down in overseas travel, the reduction in peoples interest in long-distance domestic group tours is even more remarkable. Statistics from a well-known Shanghai-based travel service show that the number of long-distance domestic group travelers over this past golden week has dropped by over 30%.

Evidently, price hike campaigns that are almost routinely launched by airlines, hotels and scenic spots during every "golden week" during the past few years, are the main reason for the decrease in tourists. Many people are tired of having to pay exorbitant prices and elbow their way to the front of the crowd to view the scenery.

During this past "golden week," the costs of many tourism resources generally grew by 30-50%, as expected. Hopefully, the voluntary boycott of golden week group tours by some Shanghai citizens will give service providers something to think about.