WITH only a week to go before the eight-day National Day holidays begin, scalpers are active again, selling train tickets at inflated prices, Chinese-language newspapers reported yesterday.
More than 1,000 train tickets to popular destinations, including Wuhan in Hubei Province and Changsha in Hunan Province, were being offered on a Web page Tuesday, the first day tickets officially began selling at train stations and ticketing agents, the Shenzhen Economic Daily said. All the tickets were being offered for prices of at least 50 yuan over their face prices. The Daily did not name the Web page.
Meanwhile, many residents have complained that it is hard to secure tickets at train stations and ticketing agents, even after the sale of tickets for the holidays had just begun.
“It’s just like the chunyun period,” said a woman who gave only her family name, Li. Chunyun is a notorious travel peak around the Spring Festival when millions of people travel home for family reunions for the Chinese New Year.
Li arrived at a ticketing agent in Meilinyicun neighborhood in Futian before 7 a.m. Tuesday only to find a very long queue in front of the agent, according to the Southern Metropolis Daily. Li was planning to visit her parents in Hubei Province during the public holidays.
She was just one of hundreds of thousands of people who intend to go home for the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival. The most popular destinations were Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan and Jiangxi provinces, the Southern Metropolis Daily said, citing sources at the Shenzhen West Railway Station.
“Tickets for Sept. 30 to the popular destinations are sold out,” an employee at the Shenzhen West Railway Station identifying himself as Dai, told the Daily. “Tickets for Oct. 1 are also selling very fast.”
(SD News)