China’s Golden Week crowds underscore tourism boom – and safety strains

BEIJING – Before Beijing’s Happy Valley amusement park opens each morning, its employees conduct security checks and run “empty car” tests on roller coasters – inspections that will be repeated more often throughout the day as the park braces itself for an influx of visitors during China’s Golden Week holiday.

Between Oct 1 and 8, hundreds of millions of Chinese will be travelling across the country, creating a surge that could overwhelm popular tourist sites such as the Great Wall and reviving longstanding concerns over overcrowding and safety.

On Oct 1 alone, passenger trips totalled 335.8 million, according to the Ministry of Transport.

From Hangzhou’s West Lake to Mount Hua in Shaanxi province, famed for one of the world’s steepest hiking trails, tourist hot spots across China have stepped up precautions, from using tools such as AI-powered real-time crowd monitoring to deploying heavier security patrols so they can keep the holiday rush under control.

China’s domestic tourism boom, which has almost entirely bounced back from the Covid-19 pandemic-induced slump, is both an economic lifeline and a stress test, analysts said.

While the Golden Week travel rush brings in the vital tourist spending China needs to bolster its sluggish economy, it also exposes the fault lines of an industry where ageing infrastructure, uneven enforcement and gaps in emergency preparedness collide with soaring demand.

Ms MingYii Lai, a strategy consultant at Daxue Consulting in Shanghai, said safety rules are more rigorously enforced at flagship 5A-rated attractions, which tend to draw the most crowds, but conditions vary widely at less-developed sites.

“Ageing infrastructure and gaps in enforcement are particularly serious at lower-tier or privately operated sites, as well as in newly developed rural areas, where oversight is often weaker,” she added.

The Chinese authorities estimate that 2.36 billion cross-regional trips will be made over the eight-day holiday in 2025, averaging about 295 million journeys a day, up 3.2 per cent over the same period in 2024.

The annual holiday, which combines China’s National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival, has traditionally produced peak numbers of travellers and has long symbolised both the scale and strain for China’s tourism juggernaut.

During the five-day May Day holiday in 2025, travellers made 314 million domestic trips, up 6.4 per cent year on year, with tourism spending rising to 180.3 billion yuan (S$32.6 billion), an 8 per cent increase from 2024.

But despite record numbers of travellers packing China’s train stations, airports and scenic sites in 2025, tourism spending has yet to return fully to pre-pandemic levels. Households’ spending power has shrunk because of the sluggish economy, a difficult job market and a prolonged property slump.

Partly as a result of that, Chinese travellers’ habits have shifted in recent years, with many seeking value-for-money trips and preferring independent, flexible and experiential travel such as rural and nature-based getaways often discovered through social media, said Professor Christina Chi of Washington State University.

More are now heading to affordable, lesser-known and off-the-beaten-track destinations, precisely the places where safety oversight tends to be weaker.

Such vulnerability was laid bare in August, when a sudden flash flood swept through an undeveloped “wild camping spot” in Inner Mongolia, touted online as a hidden gem destination. Twelve campers died in the incident, and only one in the group survived.

Accidents at more established attractions have also underscored structural weaknesses.

Also in August, five people were killed after

a cable snapped on a suspension bridge

packed with tourists in north-western China’s Xinjiang region. During the 2024 Golden Week, a tourist fell from a cable car at Zhejiang province’s Yandang Mountain after a malfunctioning door was flung open by strong winds.

Prof Chi, who looks at China’s tourism industry, said such accidents highlight risks from ageing or poorly maintained infrastructure, often further strained by overcrowding during peak holiday periods. “Gaps in emergency preparedness such as delayed warnings, insufficient life-saving equipment and slow responses add to public concern and underline the urgent need for stronger safety management,” she said.

Still, Prof Chi noted that the pressure from overtourism has eased in some areas, thanks to infrastructure upgrades such as new high-speed railways, which disperse visitors to more destinations. Policy efforts, too, have shifted towards managing visitor numbers and crowd safety, rather than simply promoting tourism growth, she added.

“The most intense pressure now tends to be seasonal and location-specific rather than uniformly everywhere,” said Prof Chi.

On Sept 29, the Chinese authorities instructed local governments to tighten holiday safety, calling for stricter checks on suspension bridges, cable cars, sightseeing boats and “magic carpet” conveyors at scenic spots. Officials also called for closer monitoring of crowds at large-scale events to prevent stampedes, as well as stronger fire safety measures.

In a sign that China’s regulators are aware of the risks, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said in May that it conducted unannounced spot checks in eight provinces, discovering almost 400 safety hazards and problems.

Lapses ranged from carrying out bamboo rafting in heavy rain with damaged life jackets to minors being allowed to participate in fire-breathing performances to hot air balloon rides operating without seat belts, safety ropes or helmets.

Dr Liu Simin, vice-president of the tourism branch of the China Society for Futures Studies research institute in Beijing, said China’s holiday structure, which is concentrated on a few long holidays and the summer school vacation, makes congestion and overtourism inevitable in the short term.

“Paid annual leave is, in principle, a basic right for workers but, given today’s job market, people prioritise job security over taking time off,” he said, adding that even those who do take leave often plan it around their children’s summer break, a peak travel period.

Tourism, he added, plays a major role in driving local economic and social development by raising incomes, creating jobs and improving social standards, and is therefore a clear priority for local governments.

This makes safety a key issue, said Dr Liu. “Local officials are held accountable for safety accidents and responsibility is strict, so it’s rare to see cases where development is pursued with no regard for safety,” he said.

At Beijing’s Happy Valley amusement park on the eve of Golden Week, some lucky individuals were making the most of their time at the attraction before the crowds descended.

Student Yin Shiye, 17, was delighted to find that she could hop on her favourite adrenaline-pumping roller-coaster rides after queueing for less than 10 minutes.

“A few years ago, my parents brought me here during Golden Week and all I remember is people everywhere and hours of queueing, which was a horrible experience,” said Ms Yin, who was visiting the park with her friend from nearby Hebei province.

“We chose to come before the holiday because we don’t have to attend school today. I’m not sure if we’ll get the same freedom when we’re working adults,” she said.