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The academy did not forecast how many mainland tourists will visit Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao as well as foreign destinations, but industry insiders said that long-distance foreign destinations in the United States and Europe will also benefit from the long holiday.
The China Tourism Academy forecast that 210 million tourists will travel domestically in the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays.
This year, 1.3 billion Chinese will be able to enjoy two public holiday periods as long as 10 days.
The Mid-Autumn Festival holiday falls on Sept. 22 to 24, while the seven-day National Day holiday starts on Oct. 1. Between them, there are six working days.
"If people can get approval to take the week off between the two holidays, they can have a 16-day holiday, which is ideal for long-distance outbound tours," said Dai Bin, head of the academy.
Travel agencies said sales of packages for long-distance outbound destinations have particularly benefited from the two holidays.
"The long holiday allows more tourists to participate in our outbound tours to faraway destinations, such as Canada, South Africa and even Chile and Tahiti," said Shi Xiaojuan, assistant general manager of the China Travel Service Beijing office.
Packages of trips to the US, Canada and Japan are all very popular. These were fully booked by as early as the end of August, she said.
The long holiday also benefited domestic destinations.
"Trips to the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Yunnan province and the Tibet autonomous region all sold quite well because of the longer holiday plans of our customers," said Xu Xiaolei, a senior manager of China CYTS Tours.
Song said he started the long vacation plan early this year. His boss quickly approved his annual leave request, he said.
Jason Song, a 26-year-old employee of consumer goods company P&G's customer business development department in Hangzhou, told China Daily he successfully asked for an annual leave of one week, which combined the two holidays together.
"I'm planning to go on a road trip in Xinjiang," he said. "Many of my friends will go with me as we all have a 16-day vacation."
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