CRI听力:Market of New Year Holiday Travel Season

Tomorrow is Jan 1st 2010. The 3 day New Year Holiday is enough for a short trip, either your choice is the warm beach, or the beautiful snow covered mountains. Let's take a look at what the short holiday can bring to the current tourism market.

Here is our reporter Li Dong.

Reporter: The market goes to two directions at the same time. On one hand, travelers are expected to enjoy a good discount. To those who choose to stay away from the freezing cold winter and experience the warm exotic scenery in far away places like Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East and Africa, there is an obvious decline of prices. Some travel agencies even cut their prices by as much as 30 percent due to choosing chartered planes.(www.hXen.com)

Zhang Wei is the director of the overseas travel department at China International Travel Service or CITS.

"Nowadays, people know more about how to travel and how to choose personalized travel routes. Like our Middle East, Africa and Egypt line, or Egypt and Turkey line, these lines used to be favored by people who love history. But now, many people choose these lines."

And to meet the growing demand of the flexible back-pack tour lines, Zhang Wei says, some specially designed lines may satisfy their needs.

"There are only 3 days for the New Year holiday. For overseas tour lines, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and some Southeast Asian countries may be good choices, like we have the "4-day Tokyo shopping tour" and the "3-day Korea tour". Also, the Bali Island and Bintan Island lines are also very popular."

So, the growing number of tourists brings the price hikes at these destination countries. The price of plane tickets and hotels rooms is on the rise, like during the New Year Holiday, the cost of Southeast Asian lines rises by about 10 percent on average.

As for the domestic travel lines, hot spring and skiing are the main ones many people favor. And the recent cold snap in China makes these lines even hotter.

Zhang Lingjie, manager of domestic travel department at CITS says, there is a new trend in people's domestic travel choices.

"One thing different of this year's New Year Holiday travel season is that people's short-distance travel lines are no longer limited to the hot springs and skiing in the suburbs of Beijing. They are choosing farther places to ski and enjoy the hot springs at Haerbin or Yun Nan. According to our statistics, the number of travelers enlisted in our travel lines may rise by 30 percent compared to the same period last year."

According to C-trip.com a travel service site, the price of star-rated hotels in Northern China like Haerbin, Shenyang and Dalian rose by 10 percent. These places are traditional winter travel destinations in northern China. As for those popular resorts in South China, such as Sanya, star-rated hotel room prices has gone up by about 30 percent.

For China Drive, I am Li Dong.