China on Sunday reported record-high figures for domestic travel and spending during the just-concluded Chinese Lunar New Year holidays, with both figures also largely exceeding those of the same period in 2019 before COVID-19.
The travel and spending boom during the eight-day holidays underlined improved sentiment among Chinese consumers and fully illuminated the vitality and vast potential of China's consumption market, the biggest economic growth driver, which helps brighten the outlook for China's economic recovery in 2024 and beyond, analysts said.
During the eight-day Chinese Lunar New Year holidays that ended on Saturday, 474 million domestic trips were made, up 34.3 percent year-on-year, and the total domestic tourism spending jumped by 47.3 percent year-on-year to about 632.69 billion yuan ($87.95 billion), according to data released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (MCT) on Sunday.
Significantly, the number of trips made during the holidays represented a 19 percent growth from the level during the same period in 2019 before the pandemic, and total spending increased by 7.7 percent from that of the same period in 2019, the MCT data showed.
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