However you celebrated the passing of the New Year in Beijing, it's most likely you did it in a crowd of people as the city welcomed record-breaking crowds over the three-day holiday weekend.
Over 2.1 million tourists came to Beijing between Dec 30 and Jan 1, marking a 17 percent year-on-year increase that was well above the 11 percent average increase in tourism throughout the country at large.
Beijing was also equally adept at getting visitors to spend. Local business racked up RMB 73.42 million in sales over the New Year break, 18 percent higher than the same time last year. This year, New Year's tourists were especially enamored with buying gold and jewelry, reported to be 40 percent higher than the entire monthly average for December 2017.
As in previous years, local cultural attractions were the main draw for visiting tourists. The Palace Museum saw a 58 percent increase in attendance from its 168,000 visitors over the long weekend, but the biggest surge in numbers came from Taoran Pavillion Park whose 92,000 visitors signified an 88 percent year-on-year rise.
The flag-raising at Tian'anmen Square was especially popular on New Year's Day (shown above), attracting pre-dawn queues measuring hundreds of meters long before the ceremony would begin at sunrise.
The enduring tradition of ice skating at the Beihai Rink in Shishaha was also a crowd favorite. Some 180,000 visitors flocked to the frozen lake over the holiday, a 10 percent year-on-year increase that led to a need for extra security (shown below).
Beijing marked the New Year with massive outdoor televised shows like the one at Yongdingmen which counted down the seconds to 2018 with light displays, celebrities, and performances. However, some Beijing residents were left with underwhelming alternatives.
Already popular for its seasonal light show, the Solana Lifestyle Shopping Center proved to be a disappointment with local visitors when they found out the mall did not have any New Year's event planned, instead shutting down its lights at 10.30pm. Meanwhile, a local crowd that assembled at The Place loudly counted the final seconds of 2017 only to culminate in an anti-climatic silence, their raised cellphones pointed at the sky capturing no fireworks (that have been banned).
But, it could have been worse. New Year's revelers hoping to catch a ride home from Sanlitun during the wee hours of Jan 1 had to deal with a 600-plus person-long waiting queue.
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