The Shenzhen Bay Checkpoint is becoming a highly popular choice for border crossings among travelers. Approximately 820,000 passenger trips and 80,000 vehicle trips were recorded at the checkpoint during the National Day holiday, up 29% and 26%, respectively, over the same period last year.
Data released by the checkpoint show that during the first half of the holiday, peak outbound travel occurred on Oct. 1 and 2, with outbound travelers from the mainland accounting for 60% of the total.
On Oct. 5 and 6, coinciding with the National Day holiday and Hong Kong public holidays, there was a small peak in both entries and exits, with Hong Kong and Macao travelers being the main driving force, and the daily number of passenger trips exceeded 140,000 per day.
With easy access to the Hong Kong International Airport, the Shenzhen Bay Checkpoint is the preferred border crossing for many mainland tourists taking international trips. During the holiday, many mainland residents chose to travel to popular tourist destinations in Asia like Singapore, Thailand, Japan, and South Korea.
On Oct. 7, Liao Xuan, a mainland resident, ended her five-day trip to Thailand and re-entered the mainland through the Shenzhen Bay Checkpoint after arriving at the Hong Kong airport. "The return trip from the Hong Kong airport through the Shenzhen Bay Checkpoint was quite smooth," she said.
Other checkpoints in Shenzhen also experienced significant increases in travelers during the holiday, according to the city's border authority. From Oct. 1 to 7, the Huanggang and Futian checkpoints saw more than 1.57 million passenger trips in total, a year-on-year increase of 23%. Among them, more than 1.22 million trips were made through the Futian Checkpoint, a year-on-year increase of 24.7%.
During the holiday, the Shenzhen Airport Checkpoint recorded more than 103,600 cross-broder passenger trips and over 1,000 flights, a year-on-year increase of 56.9% and 46.1%, respectively. The number of foreign tourists who entered through the Shenzhen Airport Checkpoint increased by 87.3% year on year.
Over the seven-day holiday, nearly 358,000 passengers flew in and out of Shenzhen on China Southern Airlines, which operated an average of 303 flights per day.
Data from online travel agency Ctrip show that during the holiday, Shenzhen was one of China's top 10 destinations for international tourists.