(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-10-19 23:27

BEIJING -- Half of Chinese travelers want to abolish all "Golden week" holidays, except Spring Festival, according to a survey released by Ctrip on Thursday.

The survey of 2,200 travelers with annual salaries above 60,000 yuan (8,000 U.S. dollars) found most wanted to retain the seven-day Spring Festival holiday when Chinese celebrate the lunar new year and a very important occasion of family reunion, the Beijing News reports.

Ctrip is the largest consolidator of hotel accommodation and airline tickets for China's individual travelers.

About 14 percent of the respondents supported scrapping all three "golden week" holidays and 49.4 percent wanted to scrap or change the May Day and National Day "golden weeks" and retain the Spring Festival holiday.

If the government scrapped one or more week-long holidays, 60.1 percent favored compulsory paid vacation in their place to allow every worker to arrange their own holidays, the survey found.

The government began the week-long holidays on the National Day, May Day and Spring Festival, which usually falls in January or February, in 1999.

Millions of Chinese flocked to national parks, scenic spots and world heritage sites on "golden weeks", overloading service facilities such as transportation, hotels and restaurants.

The government initially hoped the week-long vacation would stimulate consumption.

However, 53.3 percent of respondents believed the biggest advantage of the "golden weeks" was "the right to rest and take a paid vacation".

Tang Yibo, director of Ctrip's tourism business, said compulsory paid vacation would better distribute tourism demand, making travel packages cheaper and services more comfortable.

Paid vacation has been implemented in some joint ventures in big cities, like Beijing and Shanghai, by which workers arrange their holidays in accordance with the employer's situation.

However, many experts, including national political advisor Cai Jiming, said compulsory paid vacation would be difficult to implement for several years as Chinese employers had no conventions for the practice.

Shao Qiwei, director of the National Tourism Administration, revealed that concerned departments are considering perfecting the holidays to allow services to meet demand after this year's National Day holidays when 146 million travel fares were sold.