People In The Know

The Spring Festival is the most important holiday in China. It has become almost a ritual for people to travel back home each year, no matter where they are, for a family get-together. This has created an immense travel rush during this period of time. But recently, the Spring Festival has also become a time for people to travel with their families. Figures from China's tourism authorities show that the number of tourists who traveled within China during the Spring Festival reached more than 300 million. This excludes a fast-growing number of people who went to travel overseas. So how do experts evaluate this year's Spring Festival tourism season? And what about the Spring Festival travel rush? Zheng Chenguang speaks to Dr. Wei Xiang, an expert specializing in the management and economics of tourism, from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing and Mike Bastin, Senior Lecturer at Southampton Solent University in the UK.