BEIJING: A train ticket is doing more than taking travelers from A to B in China this summer. It can put them aboard a purple sightseeing train winding through the mountains of the southwest, carry them on a 19-day journey from Beijing to the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, and even unlock discounts at scenic spots after they step off the train.
China’s summer railway travel rush reached its halfway point at the end of July, with 432 million passenger trips made nationwide from July 1 to 31, according to China State Railway Group, the national railway operator.
For the full 62-day summer travel rush from July 1 to Aug 31, China’s railways are expected to handle 1.01 billion passenger trips, averaging 16.29 million trips a day. But accommodating the summer crowds is not just about adding more trains.
Railway authorities are increasingly integrating rail services with tourism, rolling out services tailored for family trips, study tours, “Red tourism” and wellness travel while linking food, scenery and cultural attractions along railway routes.
The approach is part of an effort described by China State Railway Group as “bringing rail services closer to tourist destinations”.
The scale is growing quickly. In the first half of the year, 1,797 tourism trains operated nationwide, according to the company.
In Southwest China, some trains are designed to make the journey itself part of the holiday. A purple tourist train linking Guiyang in Guizhou province with Panzhihua in Sichuan province is hard to miss, with ethnic-inspired patterns decorating its exterior. The 11-car train includes sleeper cars, a dining car and a lounge car with panoramic windows and connects popular destinations across Guizhou, Chongqing and Sichuan, including Chengdu and Xichang. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
