China saw a boom in the consumer market during the New Year holiday, marked by bustling tourist attractions and record box office earnings, indicating a solid start for the country's economic recovery in 2024.
During the three-day New Year holiday that ended on Monday, a total of 135 million domestic tourist trips were made, up 155.3 percent year on year, according to data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
The total revenue of the country's tourism market surpassed 79.73 billion yuan (about 11.23 billion U.S. dollars) in the three days, tripling that of the holiday season last year and increasing 5.6 percent from 2019.
According to data from the leading travel platform Trip.com, bookings for domestic trips on the platform rocketed 168 percent compared with the same period in 2023, while that of outbound trips registered a 4.88-fold increase.
On Alibaba's travel platform Fliggy, bookings for ice and snow leisure during the holiday increased 126 percent from a year earlier. The most popular destinations included Harbin, Changchun and Baishan in northeast China as well as Urumqi in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Zhangjiakou in north China's Hebei Province.
Data from e-commerce platform Meituan showed that online payment for catering across the country surged 230 percent year on year during the three days.
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