Golden Week shines for shops in China

The country's week-long National Day Holiday running from Oct 1 to Oct 7, dubbed the "Golden Week" for businesses, saw a record-breaking 696.2 billion yuan ($109.4 billion) in sales for retail and catering industries, up 17.5 percent year-on-year, figures from the Ministry of Commerce showed. The holiday also set another record of more than 300 million Chinese residents traveling within the country and abroad. According to tourism administrative authorities, 119 tourist spots monitored by the Ministry of Commerce nationwide received more than 24.33 million visitors, a year-on-year increase of 8.8 percent, with tourism revenues rising 10.6 percent year-on-year to about 1.24 billion yuan. "The tourist boom represented a robust consumption demand in the domestic market - despite inflationary pressure - and also represented optimism and confidence in the economic outlook of the world's second largest economy," said Liang Da, an economist with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Chinese tourists also brought a boon to foreign countries. According to a recent report released by the World Luxury Association on Chinese overseas consumption over the Golden Week, the total value of luxury commercial goods bought by outbound Chinese tourists amounted to 26 billion euros ($35.49 billion), equivalent to that of the domestic market for luxury goods over three consecutive months. The average per capita consumption was between 2,000 and 8,000 euros. Money was spent mainly on brand-name fashion items, French cosmetics, perfume and leather goods, said the report, adding that Chinese tourists replaced Japanese and European consumers as the world's biggest buyer of luxury goods during the seven days.