Liao Baoping (Xi'an Evening News): During long holidays, all scenic spots are filled with tourists. People go out and see other people, instead of appreciating the beautiful scenery.

Recently, CNN has issued a ranking list of the duration of paid annual leave in countries around the world. Brazil and Lithuania rank the first with 41 days' paid leave while China ranks the last with 21 days. Many Chinese sigh even 21 days are hard to realize. By now, the state's 17 days of legal holidays are an empty promise for many working people. If they insist on the law by demanding a holiday, the result may well be dismissal when they return. Sometimes, female employees dare not to give birth to children, because they will probably get fired because of maternity leave.

Paid annual leave is undoubtedly important welfare. Without holidays to refresh, people's working efficiency will be low.

Currently, some people cannot enjoy the benefit of legal holidays, or they can't travel a long distance because the holidays are too short. For the whole year, only National Day and Spring Festival offer the longest holidays, but Spring Festival is for family reunions, so National Day holiday is the best and only long holiday for long-distance traveling. When all people travel, scenic spots become overcrowded.

Wu Ruidong (West China Metropolis Daily): The National Day holiday this year witnessed 300 million trips around the country, and statistics from the Ministry of Commerce show that retail and catering sectors harvested an income of 700 billion yuan ($109.4 billion) or so, reaching a historical high.

Governments at various levels are counting wealth created during this period, echoed by economic experts who speak highly of holidays' contribution to economic growth. Nevertheless, overemphasis on economic gains and the effect of the Golden Week tourism on boosting consumption is by no means a sustainable economic mode.

Today's holiday economy comes to a large extent at the cost of damaging ecological environment and historical and cultural heritage. Famous natural and cultural scenic spots are always crowded with tourists during the weeklong holiday, and these places operate under excessive pressure.

Long holidays are also marked by frequent accidents because of busy traffic flows. Self-driving travel has become a new fashion, but before an auto culture is developing in China, it poses a big challenge to traffic safety. For example, on the last day of this year's National Day holiday, three car accidents in Henan and Anhui provinces and Tianjin Municipality resulted in the death of 56 people.

More importantly, people's sudden and huge spending during the Golden Weeks does little to push forward the whole year's consumption growth. People's consumption for a year is almost a fixed amount. If they spend too much during the holiday, they will spend less on other festivals or holidays. You also have to take into account price hikes during holidays, from food to park admission fees.

The National Tourism Administration of China says, from 1985 to 1998, before the seven-day holiday system was practiced, tourism profits basically grew above 10 percent. But, since this system was adopted in 1999, except in years affected by the SARS epidemic in 2003, the tourism industry' annual revenues increased at between 10 percent and 13 percent, with the highest growth rate at 16.4 percent in 1999.

Obviously, solely depending on holidays for economic growth is insufficient. To encourage people's consumption further and boost domestic demand, it's important to help increase middle- and low-income groups' earnings, so they have money and are willing to spend. It's also necessary to improve the current social security system so that people don't need to worry they can't afford education and medication after spending on holidays.

Yuan Guangkuo (Guangzhou Daily): The focus is almost all on the Golden Week's economic gains contributed by tourism. Apart from economic gains, there are still many other factors that need to be taken into account. From a certain perspective, only by making clear certain factors can we ensure that every year's holidays operate in a sound and virtuous way.

The first concerns the environment. During the Golden Weeks, every corner, all over the country, is crowded with tourists. All cars rush onto the roads at this moment. The negative impact of such a dense population movement is immeasurable. The Golden Weeks do bring huge revenues for restaurants, hotels, parks and toll booths, but what about the damage they do to the overall environment?

The second is people's moral standard. It is common to see tourists throwing litter wherever they want in scenic spots during long holidays. Some people even use certain fake certificates so that they don't need to buy tickets to enter parks.

Third, traffic safety is becoming an increasingly great problem during long holidays. With greater numbers of Chinese now owning cars, self-driving tours have becomes a new fashion, which tests the limits of road safety.