Demand for travel in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) has surged considerably during the Labour Day “golden week” holiday, which runs between 1 and 5 May in mainland China.
According to official data cited by Nanfang Daily, the entire province set a new record for the total number of crossborder trips carried out on 1 May, with the figure hitting 43.64 million, a rise of 14.34 percent year-on-year.
Meanwhile, Guangdong’s highways handled a record-breaking total of 11.56 million vehicular trips on the first day of the break, up 18.14 percent year-on-year.
The province’s railway network, including its intercity railway, also hit a new high, carrying approximately 2.83 million passengers, an increase of 13.73 percent in comparison to 1 May 2025.
Some of the busiest stations included Guangzhou South Railway Station, which processed a record number of 950,000 passengers on 1 May, including an unprecedented total of 543,200 departing passengers. Similarly, Shenzhen North Railway Station set a new record by handling 735,700 passengers, including 407,200 departing travellers.
Approximately 24,800 crossings were made via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB), surging 19.41 percent over the same period last year. As well, the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link logged a record total of around 190,700 trips, up by almost 5 percent year-on-year.
By city, Macao recorded a cumulative total of 1.69 million crossings during the first two days of the Labour Day break. This figure marks a year-on-year rise of 8.3 percent, and is equivalent to an average of 849,000 inbound and outbound crossings per day, according to Public Security Police (PSP) data cited by local media.
[See more: Macao visitor arrivals surge past 11 million mark in first quarter]
CCTV reported yesterday that Macao had welcomed around 247,700 visitor arrivals on 2 May, setting a new single-day record for the city. On the first and third day of golden week, the SAR registered roughly 203,000 and 182,000 visitor arrivals respectively.
On 2 May, the SAR also set a new single day record for the most number of inbound and outbound crossings in a single day, with the total hitting roughly 889,000. More than 50 percent of the crossings were made via the Border Gate, followed by Hengqin Port’s 16.6 percent and Qingmao Port’s 15 percent.
Hengqin Port experienced a substantial boost in terms of passenger flow on 2 May, registering a record single-day high of almost 148,000 crossings.
Macao’s neighbouring SAR, Hong Kong, witnessed a sharp rise in tourist numbers as well. In his blog yesterday, the financial secretary, Paul Chan, reported that the city had logged roughly 602,000 visitor arrivals during the first two days of golden week, up 6 percent year-on-year.
TVB noted that as of 9 pm yesterday, the city had a mainland visitor arrival tally of around 193,000 for that day.
Travel across Shenzhen also grew substantially during golden week, with SZNews reporting that the city’s seven main traffic hubs had registered around 3 million passenger trips on 1 May, up 15.69 percent year-on-year.
Nationwide, the Ministry of Transport estimates that over 340 million interregional passenger trips were made on the first day of the Labour Day break, a jump of 3.4 percent over the same period last year.
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