An online travel survey has showed that the number of Chinese people planning to travel during the upcoming national October holiday dropped by 15 percent from last year.

The survey found that 59.5 percent of the respondents say they will travel during the "Golden Week" holiday, from October 1 to October 7, while last year the same survey said 75.1 percent of the respondents would travel.

And 9.3 percent confirmed they would spend the holiday at home, up 3.5 percent from last year's survey.

Among those opting to travel, 78.2 percent plan to travel in China.

Jiuzhaigou in southwest China's Sichuan province, Sanya in Hainan province in south China and Lijiang in southwest China's Yunnan province rank the top three tourism destinations. Tibet ranks the fourth with the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet railway on July 1.

The questionnaire was conducted by ctrip.com, China's largest online travel service company, and 4,000 valid questionnaires were returned.

Ever since China initiated the golden week holiday system in 1999, Chinese have taken 1.3 billion trips and spent more than 560.6 billion yuan (US$70.1 billion) during the past golden week holidays, namely the Spring Festival, May Day and National Day, according to cumulative statistics.

But some experts have called for a reconsideration of the system, and have criticized local authorities for overlooking tourists' needs and safety.

According to the Ministry of Public Security, 44 people were killed across the country in seven major road accidents during the last May Day holiday.

There were also a high number of complaints about a poor standard of service, increased admission prices at scenic spots and overcrowded public transport.

(Xinhua News Agency September 16, 2006)