Screenshot of the video

 
After tens of thousands of visitors crowded the Huangshan Mountain during the Qingming Festival holidays, the Taishan Mountain has become the Chinese tourists’ new favorite, and catching the sunrise on top of the mountain is one of trends in the five-day May Day holidays.

However, as many top tourist attractions hit the post-epidemic capacity limit during the first day of the extended May Day holidays on Friday, some suspended bookings to avoid overcrowding and analysts predicted that the number of tourists during the holidays will be 60 percent of that of last year. 

The Taishan Mountain management committee published three notices on Friday night to take measures such as suspending ticket sales and bookings for visits at different times to control the increasing number of tourists.

China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism said that about 70 percent of national scenic areas have been re-open to the public. These scenic areas are trying to control the flow of visitors to under 30 percent of the maximum capacity.

Tourists have to book tickets at least one day in advance online, and when the appointment number reaches the maximum, scenic areas will stop selling tickets of the day, which has been taken as one of the measures to control the flow in scenic areas. 

Many scenic areas, including Jiuzhaigou Valley Scenic and Emei Mountain in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province, limited the flow, which made it difficult to even buy one ticket in these hot scenic areas. The Palace Museum, has no ticket until May 10, as Technology Daily reported.

A video posted on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo shows thousands of tourists queuing up all night at the Taishan Mountain in East China's Shandong Province to wait for the sunrise.

"There was a huge number of people climbing the mountain with me at night. Although the crowd could move, the speed was plodding," one of the tourists surnamed Zhang, who climbed to the top of the mountain on the morning of May 1, told the Global Times on Saturday. 

Many tourists like Zhang consider that climbing to the mountain top and catching the sunrise on the first day of a new month is a good sign and best wish for the whole month, which is also romantic.

The scenic area of Taishan Mountain, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, saw over 21,000 visitors on Friday.
 
The number, as a staffer with scenic area described to the Global Times, was "fewer than the same period last year but much more than other days after it reopened this year."
 
The current good weather in this scenic area partly contributes to the popularity of the Taishan Mountain during the May Day holidays, said a publicity staffer with the Taishan Mountain management committee who preferred to remain anonymous.
 
The scenic spot was fully booked for as of 3 pm Saturday, the management committee said.

A chart of hot tour destinations on China’s online travel platform Ctrip shows that besides the Taishan Mountain, the ancient city of Xi’an in Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province and Hangzhou, where the West Lake is located, in East China’s Zhejiang Province, have also become popular among Chinese tourists.

Amid the COVID-19 epidemic, the number of tourists during this year's May Day holidays is expected to be 60 percent of last year's numbers, Dai Bin, dean of China Tourism Academy, told the China Central Television (CCTV) on Friday.

The prediction was from a survey on the travel plans of nearly 15,000 users in more than 100 cities nationwide, CCTV reported.

During the May Day holidays last year, there were 195 million tourists across the country with total revenue of 120 billion yuan, which means about 50 million tourists traveled every day during the same period last year.

However, some scenic areas have not received too many visitors on the first day.

Tourists visit Badaling section of the Great Wall in Beijing, capital of China, March 24, 2020. The famous Badaling section of the Great Wall in Beijing has partly opened on Tuesday, after being closed for almost two months due to the novel coronavirus outbreak. (Xinhua/Chen Zhonghao)

The Badaling section of the Great Wall (Badaling), one of China's most renowned scenic areas, saw a sharp drop in tourist numbers on Friday.
 
Badaling publicity director Hu Ying told the Global Times Saturday the district saw an 81.7-percent drop in visitors year-on-year. It only received a total of 9,717 visitors on Friday.
 
The scenic area requires tourists to wear masks during their whole trips on the Great Wall to avoid possible risks of virus transmission, Hu said. It also limits the daily visitor number under 19,500 trips, 30 percent of its largest carrying capacity, she added.

The Huangshan Mountain in East China's Anhui Province, which had been overcrowded in the previous Qingming Festival holiday, also saw a similar decrease in tourist numbers during the May Day holiday. There were 3,820 people booking tickets of the scenic area online on Friday, as Anhui Business Daily reported.