Record numbers of Chinese have flocked to tourist sites around the country during the week-long Labor Day holiday.

In Beijing alone records were broken at railway stations with 301,000 passengers arriving or leaving on Thursday, the Beijing Times reported.

Some 290,000 passengers passed through Beijing rail stations on Wednesday, dropping to 280,000 on Friday with overwhelming numbers of travelers coming into the city, it said.

Some two million tourists were expected to descend on the capital during the holiday, press reports said, while Shanghai boasted some 1.6 million tourists.

Millions of Chinese take to the skies, roads and railways for each of the country's three week-long national holidays: May Day, October's National Day, and the Spring Festival over the Lunar New Year.

The nationwide vacations were approved by the Chinese government three years ago in an effort to boost consumer spending, and they have resulted in a booming domestic tourist trade.

Chinese airlines announced last week that domestic flights were 90 percent booked for the holiday, while the railways reported similar heavy use.

On May 1, 790 flights took off or landed at Beijing's Capital Airport, also setting a new daily record, the Beijing Youth Daily said.

Some 2.8 million holidaymakers jammed Beijing parks and tourist sites on Friday, paying some 89 million yuan (US$10 million) in entry fees, up 8.1 percent over the same day last year, the Beijing Times said.

Consumer spending in Shanghai between April 28 and May 3 reached nearly 1.3 billion yuan (US$157 million), up 7.9 percent over the same period last year, the Wenhui Daily reported Saturday.

Fuller nationwide retail sales figures are expected next week.

Tourism was up significantly throughout the country on Friday with 88,000 people visiting Beijing's Forbidden Palace and some 200,000 visiting Nanjing's Fuzi Temple, the China Tourist Website reported.

Similar numbers were recorded on Friday at other popular places around the country, including 196,000 taking in the beaches in eastern Qingdao city, 55,000 travelling to Shanxi province's walled city of Pingyao and 45,000 visiting the Terracotta Warrior Museum in Xi'an city.

Meanwhile an accident on the Beijing-Tianjin highway blocked outgoing traffic from the capital for much of Friday as a 20-strong truck and car pile-up left at least six people dead and several injured, traffic police said.

Beijing highways out to the Great Wall were also jammed for much of Friday as some 58,000 tourists flocked to the Badaling stretch, one of China's most popular tourist sites, the Beijing Times said.

(China Daily May 4, 2002)