DAMEISHA beach park in eastern Shenzhen will allow visitors free entry during the National Day holidays from Thursday to Oct. 8, when a new policy to curb visitor numbers will take effect, the city’s development and reform commission said Sunday.
Starting Thursday, the park, which is often overcrowded during holidays, will impose a maximum daily capacity of 50,000 visitors, according to the Yantian District Government. The park will open 19 hours a day during the holiday period, from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m.
At present, it is open 24 hours a day.
The park will impose a real-time monitoring system, reminding people to avoid peak times when visitor numbers reach 30,000. When the number reaches 40,000, the park will recommend people visit other places. The information will be conveyed via different forms of media including text messages, LED screens inside the park and on expressways, TV and radio. The information will be updated every 18 seconds, the park management said.
The management estimated that visitor numbers will peak between Thursday and Sunday.
“Visitors might be refused entry after having waited for a long time,” the management said. “We hope visitors are prepared for that and try to be understanding.”
The monitoring system was set up to avoid problems related to public security, environmental deterioration, traffic jams and accidents caused by overcrowding, Wang Hongbin, vice head of the Yantian District Government, said last week.
Dameisha, which offers free admission to the public, has often become crowded during holidays in recent years. Car parks designed to handle 12,000 to 30,000 visitors a day have regularly become overwhelmed since the opening of the Yanba Expressway and increased traffic routes in Yantian have improved access to the park. On May 2, the park saw 320,000 visitors, a record in the park’s history. Built in 1999, Dameisha has long been a favorite for holidaymakers. It saw 6.63 million tourists in 2008.
As early as August 2002, Yantian District Government proposed charging a fee to enter the park to reduce the visitor numbers, after the media reported increasing amounts of garbage being left by tourists on the beach. (Li Jing)