Taxi driver Shi Zhu, 32, had been clocking in extra mileage with higher income during the past week, but by fetching fewer passengers.

Thanks to the just concluded week-long National Day celebration - also known as the Golden Week in China - Shi was often hired on daily basis by domestic tourists visiting Datong, Shanxi province, and made trips to tourism attractions within 150 kilometers radius from the city.

"Business during the Golden Week is much better than during the Olympic Games period.

"In fact, the number of foreign tourists coming to Datong was a lot less during the Games compared to the same period last year. This Golden Week, local tourists made up the bulk of visitors," said Shi, adding he charged 400 yuan (USD58.5) for a seven to eight hours round trip to nearby attractions.

In the coal-rich Datong, about 400 kilometers from Beijing, average monthly wage for a mine worker amounted to between 2,000 (USD292) to 3,000 yuan (USD439).

Datong was not the only place flooded with domestic tourists during the past week, according to China National Tourism Administration (CNTA), the total number of tourists reached 178 million at monitored tourism sites in 31 provinces during the week ending on Oct 5.

Despite rising costs and risks of a slowing down economy, China's domestic tourism hit yet another new height during the week, realizing a year-on-year increase of 22.1% in the number of tourists, who contributed 79.6 billion yuan (USD11.65 bil) to direct tourism revenues, or a 24.2% growth compared to the same period last year.

Meanwhile, according to the Commerce Ministry, the retail sales of consumer goods in the past week totaled 420 billion yuan (USD61.48 bil), up 21% compared to the same period in 2007.

The above growth came at a time when China's GDP registered slower growth - 10.4% for the first half of this year, or 1.8 percentage point contraction compared to the same period last year.

Moreover, inflationary pressure reached 12-year high in February this year with the consumer price index (CPI) hitting 8.7% but following the implementation of a series of macro controls, the reading dropped to 4.9% in August. Meanwhile, exports had also declined and domestic stock markets slumped as global economies going through a volatile period.

Inspite of these, the enthusiasm for holiday making among the increasingly affluent Chinese remained high during the Golden Week, which was first introduced in 1999 to encourage domestic tourism.

Before that in 1996, domestic holiday makers amounted to 639 million for the entire year, and last year, the figure had expanded by more than 250% to reach 1.61 billion. The average expenditure per domestic tourist had also in last year climbed to 482.6 yuan (USD70.64) from 256.2 yuan (USD37.5) back in 1996. 

In addition, the style of holidaying too had become more diversified. According to CNTA survey, during this year's Golden Week, more domestic tourists opted for self-drive trips as private vehicle ownerships increased, and there were also more people opted for independent traveling instead of joining organized tour groups.

Though Shi was dissapointed that the Olympic Games did not draw in foreign tourists to Datong as anticipated, official statistics revealed that Olympic venues had become a "heritage" for domestic tourism.

Based on CNTA data, a single-day visiting number to the Beijing Olympic Park - home of the Bird's Nest National Stadium and Water Cube Aquatics Center - during the Golden Week peaked to 360,000 people, and at one point, the single-day record exceeded the number of visitors to the City's all time favorite tourism site - the Forbidden City. 

In addtion, other Olympic co-hosting cities like Tianjin, Qin Huangdao and Qingdao also witnessed a surge in tourists.