The Ministry forecasts that passengers will make more than three billion trips in and out of the Yangtze delta in 2010, spurring development.

The visitors to the exhibition came to/reached one hundred thousand person-times.

Officials estimate that even with the negative impact of the SARS epidemic, domestic tourists notched up 870 million "person times" in 2003, down just 0.9 percent on the 2002 record.

The comic series was seen by over 355 million people and published in over 40 languages.

The weeklong holiday will also see 520 million road trips and 9.1 million trips by ship, said He Jianzhong, spokesman of the Ministry of Transport, at a news conference on Thursday.