GUANGZHOU and Shenzhen are the top two destinations for return railway trips during this year’s “Chunyun” or Spring Festival travel season, according to statistics from Chinese online travel service provider Qunar.com.

According to presale data, the number of passengers taking return trips by train to popular cities nearly tripled year on year.

Data from Qunar.com showed that as of 10 a.m. Sunday, passenger volume during this year’s Spring Festival increased by more than 30 percent year on year, with air passenger volume increasing by over 40 percent.

According to Lan Xiang, head of Qunar’s big data research institute, the number of returning passengers peaked between Friday and Sunday.

Despite the surge in return trips, air tickets on some routes were cheaper than train tickets.

According to Qunar.com, Sunday’s airfare for flights from Guangzhou to Shanghai, Chengdu to Beijing ang Qingdao to Shanghai were lower than high-speed train tickets.

Data showed that as of 10 a.m. Sunday, the average price of economy class tickets with travel dates from Feb. 1 to Sunday stood at 715 yuan (US$112.39), the same level as the same period last year.

(Zhang Yu)