Train tickets for the May Day holiday have started to sell on China’s official train ticket booking platform 12306, with tickets to popular destinations in short supply.

Tickets to popular cities on the first day of the holiday, April 29, sold out within a few minutes after booking started.

Some netizens joked that buying train tickets during this holiday is as difficult as during the Spring Festival travel rush.

Insiders said the overstocked demand for travel since February is expected to benefit many cities and destinations on release. Meanwhile, outbound tours will reach a small climax in the upcoming holiday.

Many tourists choose to travel by high-speed train. Data from Ctrip, a tourism service platform, shows that as of 9 am on April 15, the search volume of cross-provincial travel by high-speed train on April 29increased by 323 percent compared with the previous day.

Ctrip data shows Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, Chengdu in Sichuan Province, Chongqing, Nanjing in Jiangsu Province, Zhengzhou in Henan Province and Wuhanin Hubei Province are popular during the upcoming holiday, while Chinese online travel agency Qunar said Qingdao in Shandong Province, Changsha in Hunan Province, Wuhan, and Xi 'an in Shaanxi Province are the top four destinations.

According to Qunar, many small and medium-sized cities and destinations have added or restored trains, for example, Dali in Yunan Province, Zibo in Shandong Province, and Chengdu thanks to their increasing popularity.

And data of the past one week from Ctrip shows that compared with the same period in 2019, Jinhua and Jiaxing in Zhejiang Province, Jining, Zibo, and Qingdao in Shandong Province, Baoding in Hebei Province, Kunming in Yunnan Province, Guilin in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region are gaining more popularity during the May Day holiday.

From April 10 to 16, the popularity of high-speed rail travel has exceeded nearly 20 percent in the same period of 2019, said a person in charge of Ctrip train ticket sales.

“As tourists’ enthusiasm for travel during the May Day holiday continues to rise and the increase of special tourist trains in many places, this holiday may become the busiest high-speed rail travel scene in recent years.”