Travel agencies are offering tantalizing discounts as the Spring Festival travel peak ends.
Prices for most packages for domestic destinations have dropped by half, according to China's largest online travel agency, Ctrip.
A five-day package tour from Shanghai to Sanya, for example, is offered for 2,820 yuan ($465) for one person, down at least 4,000 yuan from peak prices.
Lower prices have boosted Ctrip's business in February and March, traditionally slack periods.
Holiday packages, such as those for Tomb Sweeping Day and Labor Day, are the most popular, with more than half of them booked already.
Tourists are smart enough to avoid the rush as well as soaring prices during Spring Festival and often choose to hit the road when the holiday ends.
Liu Zhiping, a 56-year-old Shanghai resident, has booked on Ctrip a five-day trip with his wife to Sanya in March. The package, which cost the couple 7,000 yuan, includes round-trip airfare and accommodation at four- or five-star hotels.
"We have chosen Sanya as our destination because it is warmer there in March while it is still chilly in Shanghai. But the most important thing is that the price is much cheaper than during the Spring Festival holiday," Liu said.
Prices of overseas trips have also dropped. The price of a tour to Thailand has dropped by about half on average, and the price of a six-day tour from Beijing to Bali in Indonesia has dropped by 60 percent to 3,588 yuan.
A similar trend can be found in packages offered by China Youth Travel Service Shanghai.
Prices have slumped the most for trips to Australia and New Zealand. A nine-day trip to New Zealand, for example, was being offered recently for 28,000 yuan per person. But it will drop to 18,800 to 22,000 yuan at the end of February.
A special price of 17,000 yuan is being offered for March, said Zhou Yingfeng, the travel agency's product manager.
Prices of trips to Europe and the United States have also dropped 20 to 30 percent.
Liu Qi, 30, works at a State-owned commercial bank in Weihai of Shandong province. She left for an eight-day trip to Sri Lanka on Feb 8, the day after the seven-day holiday ends. The package tour costs her about 9,000 yuan, which she said was 2,000 yuan cheaper than during the holiday.
Qunar, another travel website, suggests that trips to Hong Kong, Macao, Seoul, Singapore and Thailand are real bargains as airfares have plummeted.
A round-trip ticket from Beijing to Hong Kong on Feb 14 was only 1,700 yuan per person with tax included. A round-trip ticket from Shanghai to Hong Kong is only 900 yuan at the end of February while it was 2,000 yuan during Spring Festival.
A round-trip ticket from Shanghai to Manila costs only 1,100 yuan with tax included from the end of February to the beginning of March.
shijing@chinadaily.com.cn
(China Daily 02/18/2014 page3)
