英语文摘：Tour prices drop as holiday winds down

Major travel agencies had cut prices of domestic group tours by an average 30 percent as of yesterday, as the weeklong National Day holiday approaches its conclusion.

The discount trips cover some top attractions, including Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan Province, Lijiang in Yunnan Province, Zhangjiajie in Hunan Province and some spots in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Costs for outbound tours have also been cut.

The prices of tours to Japan and the Republic of Korea have fallen by as much as 1,000 yuan ($133), according to www.ctrip.com, a travel service company.

The country's tourism market saw a peak yesterday, the National Holiday Office said in a statement.

More than 90 percent of the hotel rooms in most tourist destinations were booked, the statement said.

The office said the 119 scenic spots in its nationwide monitoring system had received 3.28 million tourists on Wednesday and 3.07 million yesterday.

Beijing's mass transit railway system carried 3.74 million people during the first two days of the weeklong holiday, according to municipal metro authorities.

The number was almost double the amount on a normal day.

An official with the Beijing environmental sanitation group said tourists had left about a third of the garbage at Tian'anmen Square each day that they did last year.

Sanitation workers cleared 26.6 tons of garbage from the square in the first two days of the holiday, compared with 80 tons last year.