Golden Week (China)

Golden Week (China)

Golden Week (黄金周) in the mainland of the People's Republic of China is the name given to a semi-annual 7-day national holiday, implemented in 2000:

• The "Spring Festival (or Chinese Lunar New Year) Golden Week" begins in January or February.
• The "National Day Golden Week" begins around October 1.

A third Golden Week holiday, which spanned May 1 and celebrated Labour Day, existed until 2007.

Three days of 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 the 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.

An estimated 28 million Chinese traveled during the first National Day Golden Week in 1999. In 2007, this number had increased to over 120 million.