Tourism revenues in China during the eight-day Lunar New Year holidays that ended on Saturday surged by 47.3 percent year-on-year thanks to a domestic travel boom, surpassing pre-COVID-19 levels, official data showed on Sunday.
The data might offer temporary relief to policymakers as the world’s second-largest economy has been facing deflationary risks amid weak consumer demand, but the sustainability of the tourism boost remains uncertain.
During the holiday, known as the world’s largest annual migration, tourist attractions across the country witnessed massive crowds.
Photo: Reuter
Domestic tourism spending jumped by 47.3 percent to 632.7 billion yuan (US$87.96 billion) from the same holiday period last year, and was up 7.7 percent from pre-COVID levels in 2019, Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism data showed.
The number of domestic trips made during this year’s holiday grew by 34.3 percent from a year ago, totaling 474 million, which also exceeded the pre-pandemic levels of 2019 by 19 percent. The holiday was seven days long in 2019.
Average spending per trip during the holiday this year reached 1,335 yuan, Reuters calculations based on the ministry data showed. This compared with 1,238 yuan per trip in 2019.
For international travel, China witnessed about 13.52 million inbound and outbound trips during the holiday, growing by 2.8 times from the same holiday period last year, the Chinese National Immigration Administration said.
The total entry-exit trips during the holiday returned to 90 percent of the 2019 levels, the administration said.
As film watching becomes one of the most popular entertainment activities during the holiday, the country’s box office revenue exceeded 8 billion yuan over the eight days, the China Film Administration said, marking a new record high.
The economy has been grappling with multiple challenges including a property downturn and sluggish demand since last year, forcing policymakers to cut interest rates to spur growth even as many developed economies were focused on taming stubbornly high inflation.
As authorities are striking a delicate balancing act to support the economy at a time when signs of deflationary pressures call for more stimulus measures, China’s central bank left a key policy rate unchanged yesterday when rolling over maturing medium-term loans.
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