The word "golden" in the name of the National Day holiday smacks of money.

At the conclusion of the week of festivities, government departments, as usual, celebrated the economic returns the annual furlough generated.

Over the past week China has celebrated National Day with an unprecedented number of marriages and record-breaking levels of travel.

Official statistics show the past week has once more turned out to be a golden stroke of luck for our economy.

The retail volume of consumer goods reached 270 billion yuan (US$33.3 billion) during the National Day holiday, up 14.2 per cent year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

It is estimated the sales volume of gold and jewellery during the holiday increased by 35 per cent compared to last year.

Seemingly, the figures validate the government's efforts to decree the week-long holiday to give the economy a shot in the arm.

The other "Golden Week" holidays are May Day and Spring Festival, which are observed either in January or February according to lunar calendar.

China mandated the breaks in 1999, giving citizens more free time and encouraging them to spend to lift the domestic economy.

Golden Week has been promoting tourism, business, transportation and other sectors.

The General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC) announced that more than 3 million Chinese travelled by plane during the National Day holiday, which ended on Friday.

On October 1 alone, CAAC dispatched a record 3,423 flights. The airports in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou handled 971,000 passengers either bound for tourist destinations or home - 160,000 more than last year.

With a big population on the move, the transportation network was stretched to the limit, as were the tourist spots themselves. Also on the list of complaints are jacked-up prices and poor service.

All of these problems lead one to ask: Are the Golden Week holidays really "people friendly"? Is having more than 300 million people on the move during the same week really a good idea? What is the real purpose of the holidays?

For the government, these breaks are intended to be engines driving economic growth.

For citizens, they are periods of free time to enjoy seeing friends and family.

The Golden Weeks have made the government smile. But are they enjoyed by holiday makers?

Sometimes these holidays are not really vacations at all, since workers need to make up two days of the so-called holiday week. For many, Golden Weeks are more about rescheduling than relaxing.

It is morally wrong to let the holidays dance, if narrow-mindedly or too much commercially driven as some blame, to the tune of the economic returns they can churn out.

The golden glow of the holidays fades somewhat when questions about the rationale behind them are vocalized.

Whether these holidays do in fact boost domestic consumption is questionable. Any rise in domestic consumption cannot last unless there is a real increase in income. They tend to cut down their spending at other times if they choose to spend more during the Golden Week.

What workers need is more flexible paid holidays, which would allow them to take time off at a time of their choosing instead of rushing to tourist attractions or shopping malls during a certain week.