The ministry attributed the rise to a recent speed boost which reduced journey times between major cities by an average of two hours and also lifted passenger transport capacity by 18 percent.

The ministry has predicted that rail passenger traffic during the holiday will amount to 44.5 million, up 8 percent on the same period last year.

Zhang Xiqin, deputy director of the Chinese National Tourism Administration (CNTA), said that people traveling during the May Day Holidays normally represented 40 percent of the total taking advantage of the country's three "Golden Week" holidays to travel for pleasure or to see family members.

The Spring Festival or Chinese Lunar New Year accounts for 25 percent while the National Day holiday beginning on Oct. 1 makes up the remaining 35 percent.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Railways said Wednesday that passenger traffic for the next three days will ease off but rebound again on May 5-6 as people start to return.

Railway fare income has surged 16.3 percent to 236.3 million yuan, according to early figures.

With the country caught in a festive, recreational mood, many tourist spots are also benefiting from a consumption boom. Parks and tourist attractions in east China's Anhui Province, for instance, raked in a record high of 131 million yuan in ticket revenue on May 1, up 79 percent on the same period last year.

The Huangshan Mount, or the Yellow Mountain, hosted 11,900 tourists on Tuesday alone, gaining 2.36 million yuan in revenue.

A total of 73,700 people toured Beijing's Summer Palace on Tuesday and a further 15,500 visited the capital's prestigious Tibetan Buddhism Lama Temple. Both numbers were records.

Apart from the traditional getaways, an increasing number of urban Chinese visited villages for a taste of pastoral life or traveled to places connected with the early days of the Chinese Communist Party, such as Jinggangshan and Yan'an, for a patriotic tour.

The CNTA said that Yan'an received 7,600 visitors on Tuesday, up 2.75 percent on the same period of last year.

Jianggangshan Tourism Bureau chief Xiao Yonghua said that the city in east China's Jiangsi Province hosted 351,000 tourists from home and abroad in the first quarter, up 18.7 percent year-on-year.

To attract tourists, the local tourism bureau is zealously playing the Red Tourism card. "Come! We offer you a journey back into history to experience the joy and sorrow of the past," Xiao said.