Millions of people in China travel for the Spring Festival. The holidays are an important consumer driver for the country. In 2024, the Chinese seem to be particularly keen to travel after the Corona years.
China’s domestic tourism exceeded the level of 2019, the year before the coronavirus pandemic, with millions of trips during the Spring Festival. During the holiday week between February 10 and 18, statisticians recorded approximately 474 million domestic trips, an increase of 34 percent compared to Spring Festival 2023, according to the Ministry of Tourism in Beijing.
Last year, the Spring Festival fell in January and was still influenced by the time with strict Corona rules. Compared to the pre-Corona level in 2019, the number of trips increased by 19 percent.
The Spring Festival, also known as the Lunar New Year, is one of the most important travel periods in the world’s second-largest economy. Meanwhile, millions of people in the country with around 1.4 billion inhabitants are traveling to visit their relatives or visit popular tourist destinations. According to official data, Spring Festival tourism generates revenue of a little less than 633 billion renminbi (around 81.6 billion euros). The agency also recorded approximately 3.6 million trips abroad and 3.23 million to China.
“The tourism market is bursting with vitality,” wrote the “People’s Daily,” which is considered the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, on Monday. Consumption over the holidays should give Beijing hope of stimulating the economy, which has long been struggling with weak domestic consumption and a crisis in the real estate sector.
Source: Stern
