More than 1 million travelers jammed the Shenzhen's airport, railway station and checkpoints yesterday, the last day of the weeklong May Day holiday.

The airport and airline companies predicted that the congestion would not ease until Thursday, and advised passengers to reserve their seats early.

The municipal holiday office said more than 1 million passengers returned by road yesterday, a 23-percent jump over the same period last year. Some 329,000 vehicles returned to Shenzhen following self-drive tours.

According to Shenzhen Railway Station officials, more than 60,000 travelers used trains yesterday, the highest number recorded during the May Day golden week.

Zheng Wei, a spokesman for the airport, said more than 518 flights operated yesterday, carrying more than 60,000 passengers, mostly holidaymakers.

"Nearly 400,000 travelers used the city's airport during the golden week, a 13-percent increase over the same period last year," he said.

To ease passenger flows, airline companies in the city operated 28 more domestic flights and 43 more international flights yesterday.

"According to our statistics, most flights were more than 85 percent full with few discounts offered," Zheng said.

Local travel agencies said airfares were expected to drop by half for popular travel destinations including Haikou and Guilin for the coming weekend.

Ma Xueyu, a spokesman from the city's holiday office, said yesterday that more than 3 million tourists visited Shenzhen during the past seven days, bringing some 2.2 billion yuan (US$285.71 million) in revenue to the local travel industry. At least 40 percent of the income went to local shopping centers, 14 percent to the catering industry and 13 percent on transportation.

"Overseas visitors reached 490,000 and contributed 48 million yuan to the city," Ma told the Shenzhen Daily.

A spokesman for the municipal tourism bureau said there had been no major complaints about the city's travel industry during the holiday. According to the bureau's survey of 1,031 visitors during the May Day holiday, 50 percent of the tourists were satisfied with the local travel industry and only 2.5 percent rated it as "below standard."

Editor: Donald