They came from all over China, and they left a chunk of money behind them too. Numbers are out already as to the impact of this year’s National Day on the Nanjing economy. And where all those visitors went. And where they came from.
There was little time wasted in breaking down the data from this year’s National Day holiday this morning. Even before 09:00 was an analysis of Nanjing’s incoming tourists released.
Most will not be surprised that it was a bumper holiday this year, undoubtedly given a boost by the phenomenal weather experienced until yesterday. This despite ongoing epidemic prevention policies still in place that limit visitor numbers to cultural and tourism sites to 50 percent of capacity.
Nevertheless, a whopping 8.0301 million people visited Nanjing this National Day. Had half of our fair city not disappeared themselves for the holiday, those tourists would have almost doubled the population of Nanjing.
But the numbers are still slightly depressed. Those millions represent some 73.4 percent of the same period in 2019, reported Nanjing Daily.
As for filling the coffers, each of the visitors to Nanjing during the holiday spent on average a bit more than ¥1,000 in our city. All in, that injected ¥8.355 billion into the Nanjing economy, 75 percent of the 2019 figure. Thank you, one and all.
But where did they spend it?
This year, it was a combination of the traditional and the famous, new hotspots and the countryside which drew in the visitors.
Seven key scenic spots, namely Sun-yat Sen’s Mausoleum, Confucius Temple, Xuanwu Lake, the Presidential Palace, Yuhuatai, Niushou Shan and the Dabaoen Temple, received a total 2.8904 million tourists between them.
Elsewhere, the recently opened Jiangsu Garden Expo Park, Happy Valley and Hongshan Forest Zoo attracted 290,200 tourists to spend a sweet ¥32.2157 million.
Then there was rural tourism as one of the first choices for holidaymakers in Nanjing. This year, 62 rural tourism areas included in the monitoring statistics received 1.265 million visitors.
And where did all these tourists to Nanjing come from?
From our region, many of these who came to Nanjing for all or part of the holiday did so from Suzhou, Xuzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou in Jiangsu Provide, and Wuhu in Anhui Province.
As for the heavyweights, the top ten cities sending people to Nanjing this National Day were Shanghai, Hefei, Beijing, Hangzhou, Ma’anshan, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Chongqing, Guangzhou and Xi’an.
That Shanghai tops the list is hardly surprising. But it’s not because our fair city has just become especially popular with the Shanghainese. It’s because there are just so many of them.
