China’s Golden Week Ends, Consumption Sector Surges
The eight-day golden week holiday, the longest since COVID-19, concluded on Thursday. This year, the Mid-Autumn Festival, a traditional Chinese holiday for family reunions, was on the same day as China’s National Day.
With an extra day off, Chinese consumers celebrated with a surging demand for travel, snacks and beverages.
Tourism
The eight-day holiday has finally allowed Chinese people to realize their long lost travel plans.
China Tourism Research Institute, the data center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, estimates that during the holiday, a total of 637 million domestic tourists were received, a year-on-year recovery of 79%; the domestic tourism revenue reached 466.56 billion yuan, a year-on-year recovery of 69.9%.
What’s more, Changzhou Dinosaur Park, Beijing Happy Valley, Guangzhou Chimelong Tourist Resort, Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Lingshan scenic spot, Shanghai Disneyland, Chengdu Happy Valley, Beijing Yanqi Lake, Foshan Nanhai film and Television City, and Wuhan Zoo were among the top ten popular scenic spots in China during the national day.
During the golden week, the gross merchandise volume of reserved hotels increased by more than 100% month on month on China’s largest travel platform Trip.com Group Ltd.
Pre-sale hotels not only became a black horse of Trip.com during the pandemic, but also created an ecological chain of tourism recovery with hotels as the carrier to promote the recovery of destination scenic spots, catering and car rentals.
According to Trip.com, during the first four days in the holiday, Trip.com’s tickets booking volume increased by 100% year-on-year, reaching a record high.
Consumption also indicates a strong resumption of tourism, according to JD Big Data. The number of customer orders made from popular tourist cities such as Beijing, Hangzhou, Huangshan, Lijiang, Sanya, Xiamen, Shanghai, Xi’an and Zhangjiajie (home of “Avatar Mountain”) to be sent to customers’ hometowns (“remote orders”) increased by an average of more than 100% year-on-year.
Grocery
As of noon on Oct. 8, the order volume of physical goods on Pinduoduo, the second-largest e-commerce platform in China with nearly 700 million buyers, increased by 81.5% compared with the same period last year, according to state-owned media China Central Television.
During the Golden week, the most popular products sold on Pinduoduo were moon cakes, fruit gift boxes, milk, nuts, winterwear, liquor, cosmetics, smart wristbands and watches, kitchen appliances and diapers.
JD Super, JD’s online supermarket, shows that during the Golden week, consumers bought a lot of disinfectant products to make their travels safer, as well as children-related products as they are spending more time with their kids. Data shows that sales of disinfectant wipes increased 130% year-on-year, and hand sanitizer increased 150% year-on-year. In addition, sales of baby snacks increased 200% year-on-year.
Transportation
The eight-day holiday also drove the growth of domestic civil aviation, railway, automobile and other transportation sectors.
On Trip.com, all kinds of travel modes, such as air tickets, train tickets, bus tickets and cars, have achieved growth. Among them, air ticket orders increased by more than 100% month on month from September, train ticket orders increased by more than 300% month on month, and car rentals increased by more than 200% month on month.
Moreover, Qunar shows that more and more people are choosing more efficient and faster transportation modes, with a year-on-year increase of nearly 10% in air travel during the national holiday.
Lan Xiang, President of Qunar big data research institute, analyzed that during the national day holiday, the volume of plane ticket bookings on the platform increased by 15% compared with this period last year. What’s more, domestic civil aviation routes had carried 11.5 million passengers, up by 3.8% year-on-year.
Lan said the overall passenger volume of civil aviation will continue to rise after the holiday.
