China should have longer holidays, according to a report issued by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

It suggested adding two to six days of public holidays and its proposal, issued by the academy’s tourism research center and the Social Sciences Academic Press, also urges extending the seven-day Spring Festival holiday and restoring the May Day holiday, reduced to three days in 2008, to a week.

China should ensure holiday arrangements ease congestion and create longer holidays to help people unite or travel with their families, the report said.

“Excessive crowds during travel rushes show the shortage of long vacations,” said academy researcher Liu Simin.

It predicted that this year’s National Day holiday could see congestion worse than before.

In a poll on news portal sina.com which attracted more than 22,000 votes, 96.9 percent favored extending the Spring Festival holiday while 86.8 percent wanted the May Day holiday to be a weeklong break once again.

Some 63 percent believed the authorities would increase the number of holidays in future.

“Finally, someone stands out to speak for us,” was a comment on weibo.com.

“That’s what we expected,” another microblogger said, commenting on the poll, adding that officials from the national holiday office, which made the holiday arrangements for this year, should learn from it.

But there was also concern that public opinions might not be taken into consideration.

In two earlier polls — in October and November — there were strong calls for more and longer holidays.

But there are still only 11 official days counted as holidays this year.

A major change was cutting the number of three-day holidays made up by “moving” weekends, with the plan resolving the problem of long periods of consecutive work days in the weeks before or after holidays, something considered unreasonable by the public for years.

In addition to longer public holidays, the report also called for guaranteed paid leave.

According to statistics from the national holiday office, people with 10 years’ service in 62 countries and regions it surveyed are eligible to 19 days’ paid leave on average. China offers just 10 days.

Wang Qiyan, director of Renmin University of China’s leisure travel research center, said: “One or even two weeklong holidays can no longer meet the demand that has been rising with higher family earnings.”

The report, issued at a press conference in Beijing, also called for more investment in popular tourist sites and said local governments should also focus on developing less popular ones.

These measures could go some way toward easing holiday congestion, the report said.