The week-long Chinese New Year holiday has just ended and many Shanghai residents have already started to plan their post-holiday travel. As our Shanghai correspondent Zhou Jing finds out, due to the forecasted snow snarl and grim transportation situation, short-distance trips are preferred by tourists there.

Reporter:

Tourists to Shanghai have been fewer this Spring Festival because of the biggest snow storm in 50 years hitting large a part of the country before the holiday. But more local people enjoyed their holiday in the countryside.

According to the Shanghai Tourism Administrative Commission, the city received more than 2.4 million tourists from both home and abroad during the week-long holiday, a reduction of 15 percent from last year's Spring Festival. Tourists spent about 1.9 billion yuan or US$263 million, which is nine percent less than last year.

Meanwhile, to avoid the hustle and bustle of the city, more local people chose to travel to the countryside as the Shanghai Sightseeing Bus Center reported heavy demand for trips to the suburbs.

And during the end of the festival, many Shanghai residents have already started booking trips after the holiday. Mr Zhang is one of them.

I think trips to neighboring Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces are practical as transportation to these places is already back to normal and they consume less time.

As tourism drops off dramatically after holidays, those who choose post-holiday tours can not only avoid the crowds but also enjoy very good prices. In previous years, long-distance trips to warmer Yunnan, Guangxi and Guizhou provinces were quite popular among Shanghai tourists after the spring festival. However, this year, due to the forecasted snow ahead and grim transportation situation, short-distance trips have become new favorites. Peng Haibin is a manager from Shanghai Dazhong Travel Agency.

The snow storms affecting the country this year have changed residents' tourist destinations. They prefer to embark on driving somewhere close or one-or-two day package tours to neighboring provinces.

Currently the plum-blossom-viewing trip to Suzhou and the hot spring trip to Nanjing are most popular, which both cost less than 500 yuan per person.

At the same time, long-distance package tours which set off after the 20th this month are also heating up. Popular choices include northern and southern destinations such as Harbin and Hainan Island.

Zhou Jing, CRI News, Shanghai.