Flexibility expected to lift tourism industry

The autumn break for students will help stimulate the growth of family trips and lead to improvements in the paid vacation system for parents, experts said.

Several provinces and cities recently announced the introduction of autumn breaks for students — mostly for those at primary and junior high schools.

Ningbo, Huzhou and Jiaxing in Zhejiang province and Foshan in Guangdong province have all set three-day autumn vacations running from Nov 12 to 14, which can be lengthened to five days with the weekend added. Many other cities like Zhejiang's Jinhua have also arranged school breaks in November.

The news heralded an instant increase in flight sales and hotel bookings on travel portals. Qunar said bookings of flights departing from Ningbo from Nov 12 to Nov 16 have risen 2.18 fold compared with the same period last year. The most popular destinations are Beijing, Xi'an in Shaanxi province and Changsha in Hunan province.

Foshan has also seen flight bookings increase 2.76 fold compared with the previous year, according to Qunar.

Zhejiang's Ningbo and Taizhou as well as Foshan have seen an increase in the number of tour reservations between Nov 12 and Nov 16, according to online travel agency Tuniu.

Most families preferred booking domestic trips lasting two or three days, while some of them have booked five-day independent trips to long-distance destinations like Sanya in Hainan province or overseas countries including Japan, it said.

"It's a good explorative step to try and balance the family trip peaks during the summer vacation or long public holidays like the National Day holiday in October, as children and adults usually have unsatisfactory travel experiences due to overcrowded tourist numbers at scenic spots," said Wei Changren, founder of btiii.com, a tourism-related financial news website.

Under the changes, parents can choose when to spend their paid vacation and plan a family trip by choosing the autumn break period, which may also improve the paid vacation system, he added.

With the colder northern parts of China preparing for the start of winter, destinations in eastern or southern provinces with milder climates in November may become more popular for family vacations. "Some short-distance or neighboring overseas destinations like South Korea and Japan may also gain favor among parents," Wei said.

In September, nine central departments including the Ministry of Commerce, National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Education jointly released a notice encouraging governments at all levels to optimize vacation arrangements for students. According to the notice, local authorities are encouraged to adjust teaching and break times for students and explore steps to set up spring and autumn breaks for primary and secondary school students by shortening the summer and winter holidays.

chengsi@chinadaily.com.cn