May 1 | Labour Day, Golden Week

Written on April 28, 2007 by admin

This is the start of the Chinese Labour Day Golden Week ???. Macau will have an official Public Holiday on May 1, which is typically celebrated by a party hosted by The Macao Federation of Workers’ Unions. As usual there also should be festivities around Macau Tower.

Last year Macau received over 450,000 arrivals during the Labor Day “golden week” holiday, a growth of 10% over the same period in 2005. Of the 450,000 visitors, over 60% were from Mainland China and recorded an increase of 9%. With the Zuhai Border Gate opening on or before May 1, we can expect another huge number of visitors arrivals this Golden Week.

The Public Security Police Force figures show that from May 1 to May 7, visitor arrivals grew 10% over the same period last year to 457,165. Close to 289,000, or 63% of the arrivals are from Mainland China, a growth of 9%.

As explained by Wikipedia

Golden Week (???) in the mainland of the People’s Republic of China is the name given to three annual 7-day national holidays, implemented in 2000:^[1]

The “Spring Festival (or Chinese Lunar New Year) Golden Week” begins in January or February.
The “Labour Day Golden Week” begins on May 1st (May Day).
The “National Day Golden Week” begins on October 1st.

Three days paid holiday are given, and the surrounding weekends are re-arranged so that workers in Chinese companies always have seven continuous days of holiday. These national holidays were first started by the government for PRC’s National Day in 1999 and are primarily intended to help expand the domestic tourism market and improve the national standard of living, as well as allowing people to make long-distance family visits. The Golden Weeks are consequently periods of greatly heightened travel activity.

Source | Wikipedia

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