Driven by the long holiday and mega events, cross-boundary travel in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area saw a significant year-over-year increase during the National Day Golden Week, with several transportation hubs setting new records for passenger volume.
On Oct 4, passenger traffic through the Hengqin Port — a 24-hour checkpoint connecting Macao and Zhuhai — exceeded 150,000, setting a new record. This represents a 20 percent increase compared to the same period last year.
From Oct 1 to 5, inbound visitor trips to Macao totaled approximately 920,000. In the first three days, the trip volume reached 540,000, averaging 180,000 per day, representing a year-on-year increase of 27.4 percent.
Macao’s rich array of cultural, tourism, and performing arts events has been a key driver of the increase in inbound visitors. This year’s Macao International Fireworks Display Contest, for the first time, integrates a large-scale audiovisual performance of over 3,400 drones.
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Ten world-class fireworks companies competed in a spectacular series of five consecutive nights of fireworks displays. The grand finale on Oct 4 drew large crowds of tourists who braved the rain to watch the show from the waterfront near the Macau Tower. In addition to the six established viewing spots in Macao, five new prime viewing locations in Zhuhai and Hengqin were added this year.
In the first five days of the holiday, Hong Kong recorded about 1.13 million inbound visitor trips from the Chinese mainland, up 10.1 percent year-over-year. By noon on Oct 4, trips at Huanggang and Futian ports totaled nearly 930,000, up 9 percent year-over-year.
Throughout the Golden Week, Shenzhen and Hong Kong hosted numerous concerts, sporting events, and festive performances. Amid citywide consumer and dining promotions, representatives from Hong Kong’s catering industry said that the sector’s average daily revenue rose by more than 10 percent year-over-year. Popular categories — including jewelry and gold, watches, cosmetics, and dried seafood — saw double-digit growth in sales.
From Oct 1 to 3, interregional passenger traffic across Guangdong province totaled 111 million trips. Among them, Guangzhou South Railway Station — the nation’s busiest railway station — handled 1.049 million passenger trips, becoming the first station in the country to exceed 1 million passengers in a single day.
Many cities in the province rolled out special events that highlight local characteristics to take advantage of this prime tourism window.
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Chikan, a historic overseas Chinese town in Jiangmen, held its inaugural international arts festival, bringing together nearly 200 artists from seven countries to showcase 186 performances featuring their local cultural offerings over two weeks.
Leveraging the cultural and tourism resources from Nankun Mountain to Luofu Mountain, Huizhou has organized flash mob performances showcasing intangible cultural heritage at 16 rest stops along a highway connecting the mountains.
Visitors can enjoy performances of local martial arts and fishermen’s songs, as well as experience Lingnan-style intangible cultural heritage projects such as making woven straw hats and producing New Year woodblock prints.
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The Guangdong Folk Arts Museum, located in the renowned tourist attraction Chen Clan Ancestral Hall in Guangzhou, has recently launched an artificial intelligence smart-glasses audio guide program.
The guide supports multiple languages. With visitors wearing the AI glasses, real-time explanations are provided of the architectural details, artifacts, and more within their line of sight. During the first three days of the holiday, it served nearly 1,500 visitors per day on average.
Contact the writer at bingcun@chinadailyhk.com
