A staff member rows a boat at a scenic area in Canggou Township in Wulong District, southwest China's Chongqing, Sept. 4, 2020. Wulong carries out ecological-tourism according to its mountainous environment in recent years. By improving the accommodation level and capacity of the villages, rural tourism has been developed, which helps people here get rid of poverty without working far away from home.Photo: Xinhua

As the National Day holiday in October approaches, bookings for the impending eight-day holiday outings have been booming. Affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, many tourist attractions that previously announced free entries will still be free to visit during the holiday.

Analysts said that free entries will boost tourism industries such as hotel, catering, transportation and entertainment. And the long holiday will help boost domestic sales, as the pent-up consumption will set off a good wave of travel.

The National Day holiday, the week beginning October 1, is a traditional "golden week" of outings and avid consumption. This year's holiday will combine the Mid-Autumn holiday in late September, making it an eight-day holiday for people nationwide.

According to incomplete statistics, nearly 500 Grade-A tourism attractions have implemented the free-entry policy. Among them, there are 32 scenic spots in Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and 400 scenic spots in Central China's Hubei Province. All the tourism spots will be free to visit in Hubei, the province that was hardest hit by the epidemic earlier this year.

According to a survey by the China Tourism Academy, 30.57 percent of tourists have chosen road trips in 2019. The proportion is expected to rise this year as private and low-contact car rental tour service is more suitable for health and safety, which will boost car rentals.

Chen Bo, an associate research fellow at the Institute for Finance and Economics under the Central University of Finance and Economics, told the Global Times that tourism, a main engine of consumption, will definitely hit a new high during the holiday in October.

And a tourism analyst said that domestic tourism during the holiday and in the rest of the year is expected to recover to around 80 percent of last year's level. There were 782 million domestic tourist trips during the National Day holiday in 2019, with revenue of 649.71 billion yuan ($95 billion).