BEIJING, Feb. 2 -- Pre-festival long-distance train tickets from Guangzhou have almost sold out.

According to the group, the Guangzhou ticket office sold a record 174,290 tickets by 6 p.m., Monday, an increase of more than 20,000 over the previous day.

Tickets for major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Changsha and Chengdu were almost sold out, and tickets for Yichang, Xiangfan, Dazhou, Shaoyang, Zhengzhou, Hengyang and Chenzhou were also in short supply. It is expected that the number of travelers queuing for tickets will decrease from Wednesday.

There were about 400,000 passengers arriving and departing the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in the past week, an increase of 13.5 percent year-on-year with 3,920 flights arriving and departing, an increase of almost 20 percent year-on-year.

The occupancy rate of domestic flights from Guangzhou to Hefei, Ganzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Haikou, Changsha and Changde on Monday reached 98 percent, and international flights to Seoul, are especially popular. Discount fares for flights before Thursday for Hangzhou, Harbin and Sanya from Guangzhou are still available.

China Southern Airlines opened two special counters to help passengers who arrive late.

Travel agencies say that trips sceduled before Feb. 11 to popular tourist resorts have been almost fully booked. Trips to Huangshan Mountain, Northeast China, Beijing and Zhangjiajie are fully booked, but there are still some vacancies for trips to Sichuan, Xinjiang and Yunnan.

Some traditional routes, such as Hainan, Guilin, Wuyi Mountain and Shanghai, have lost some of their gloss. Beijing is the most popular domestic resort for Spring Festival trips because of their lower costs but high quality. South Korea has becomes the most popular outbound destination followed by Thailand which with the cheaperst tours.

(Source:Shenzhen Daily)