(Bloomberg) -- Millions of Chinese travelers thronged major cities and tourist hotspots across the nation over the Labor Day break, the first normal holiday period for many after three years of pandemic restrictions and Covid waves.

More than 159 million trips were made by car, rail, airplane and waterways in the first three days of the five-day holiday which ends Wednesday, according to data from the Transport Ministry cited by the People’s Daily, up 162% from the same period last year. 

Daily average trips across the nation during the so-called Golden Week period have nearly matched pre-pandemic levels in 2019. Passenger traffic on the railways alone hit 53.5 million, with national operator China Railway Group Ltd earlier saying it expects the figure to hit a record 120 million between April 27 to May 4.

With local trips almost back to pre-pandemic levels, so too are another dreaded phenomenon: mass crowds.

Social media were inundated with photos and videos of people crammed into public transport and huge throngs of people at tourist hotspots. The hashtag “how everywhere is crowded” was a top trending topic on the Twitter-like Weibo platform on Tuesday morning. Crowd levels are “gradually becoming ridiculous,” wrote one user, while another in Guangdong province suggested touring a war cemetery instead to avoid the masses.

Even cash-strapped university students are eager to travel after three years of strict Covid rules, planning what they call a “special forces” style holiday: basically, a short trip with a packed itinerary to cut costs. Social media posts show scores of young people sleeping in restaurants, like popular hotpot chain Haidilao International Holding Ltd., karaoke outlets, and toilets on top of the Tai and Yellow Mountains to save on hotel bills.  

The tourism boom is being closely watched to gauge the strength of consumer spending and the economy’s recovery. While growth reached a one-year high in the first quarter, signs of weakness continue to linger, with a surprise contraction in manufacturing activity last month and weak household income growth.

Mobility data tracked by Baidu Inc. shows traffic at China’s major tourist attractions in the first three days of the holiday nearly doubled from last year. At large shopping malls, the visitor numbers were up 17.6% in the same period. 

Top tourist sites in the capital Beijing and the ancient city of Xi’an saw long lines of visitors. Other attractions that drew huge crowds by foot or road included Dali, a historical town in China’s southern Yunnan province, West Lake in the tech startup hub of Hangzhou, and beaches in the eastern city of Qingdao.

Major retail and catering companies reported a 15.6% jump in sales on Monday from a year ago, according to Ministry of Commerce data cited by state broadcaster CCTV, after similar increases over the weekend. Sales of automobiles and clothing had the largest increases among retail items, by about 25% and 24%, respectively. 

Separately, China’s box office sales during the holiday reached 1.1 billion yuan ($159 million) as of late Tuesday morning, according to data from ticketing platform Maoyan.

--With assistance from Phila Siu, April Ma and Xiao Zibang.

©2023 Bloomberg L.P.