Busy stores on Christmas Eve

On the evening of December 24th, Christmas Eve, all the restaurants serving western food were crowded with customers. For many other restaurants, Christmas Eve is as busy as the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year. On average, the price for consumption in a five-star hotel was between RMB428 and RMB1180, twice the usual price and up by RMB200 to RMB500 compared with the same time of last year. The price for other restaurants or hotels was also increasing. For instance, an Italian restaurant located in Zhujiang New City charged RMB 588 per person (beside, another 15% of the price will be charged as service fee). Despite the soaring price, meals in most hotels or restaurants had been reserved several days ahead of Christmas Eve.

During the same night, two business districts surrounding Beijing Lu and Tianhe Lu were as busy as what they are during New Year's holiday. All the shops were crowded with customers, who were busy buying gifts. Statistics showed that major department stores in Guangzhou like Grandbuy, Friendship Store and TEEMAll achieved sales of over RMB38 million on Monday.

Besides, sources from Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport said that planes of all international flights were full of customers, of which flights from Guangzhou to Japan, South Korea, the U.S.A, Germany and Finland were especially popular. Most of the passengers were youth who went to Japan and South Korea to enjoy snow. Officials at the airport said that usually, only 40% of the tickets for night flights to Paris and Frankfurt would be sold out. However, all the tickets had been booked in recent days, mostly because most westerners in China would return their families for Christmas.

Editor: Donald