More people preferred to go traveling during the Spring Festival period,with the number soaring to 250,000 this year,according to the rough statistics,eastday.com reported today.

More people chose to spend the Spring Festival on travel in addition to visiting their friends and relatives,the traditional activities for the largest holiday in China.

According to the statistics so far,250,000 Shanghai people spent the holiday out of the city,increasing by 7 percent from a year before.Even in the last day of the week-long holiday,up to 12,700 Shanghai people took short journeys.

The short trips became so popular this Spring Festival with more than 94,000 tourists taking journeys through the Shanghai Tour Gathering Center in the week-long holiday,a year-on-year increase of 21.8 percent.

( eastday.com February 19, 2002)