The Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon ignites economic vitality in China

The 2024 Spring Festival holiday is officially over. The Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon, from offline to online, from the city to the countryside, the hot consumer market shows a strong flavor of the New Year. In this eight-day (February 10-17) "extended version" of the holiday, three markets surged in heat, "ignite" China's Spring Festival economy.

The first is the tourism market: 474 million trips, spending 632.687 billion yuan! This is the "war report" of domestic tourism during the Spring Festival holiday. This holiday, Ctrip platform domestic scenic spot ticket orders increased by more than 60% year-on-year, and overseas scenic spot ticket orders increased by more than 130% compared with the Spring Festival in 2019. On the Flying pig platform, the number of domestic tour bookings during the Spring Festival holiday also significantly exceeded the same period in 2019, of which medium and long line Tours increased by more than 3 times year-on-year; Outbound travel hit a four-year peak, with bookings up nearly 10 times year-on-year.

The cultural travel around the country that "rolled up and flew" years ago has gained rich returns during the Spring Festival holiday. During the Spring Festival holiday, the Yangtze River Delta region attracted more tourists, and the average daily service consumption in Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang increased by 67.7 percent, 46.8 percent and 45 percent, respectively. Driven by ice and snow consumption, the average daily sales revenue of accommodation and catering in Heilongjiang increased by 1.8 times and 1.2 times respectively. Hainan, the traditional tourist destination in winter, has a relatively high growth rate of tourism services, and the daily average has doubled year-on-year. Tourism has become a necessity for the Chinese people to experience a better life. With the Spring Festival as the starting point, inbound and outbound tourism will enter the fast track of recovery.

The second is the movie market: the box office boom has produced the strongest Spring Festival season in history. 8.016 billion yuan! This is the Chinese film box office performance of the Spring Festival holiday in 2024, an increase of 18.47% compared with the same period last year, becoming the strongest Spring Festival holiday in history. This Spring Festival, a number of comedies with a wide audience, good viewing effect and family fun atmosphere continue to ferment word-of-mouth, attracting a large number of Chinese people to bring their families to the cinema. During the Spring Festival, a total of 163 million people watched the movie, a significant increase of 26.36% over the Spring Festival last year, and a new record high in the same period. "Hot and Hot" "Flying Life 2" "Bears · Reverse time and Space" ranked among the top three box office, and all gained a good reputation, the top two Spring Festival box office are more than 2 billion yuan mark. China's box office for the whole of 2024 has reached 11.081 billion yuan as of 9:30 am on Feb 18, according to the State Film Administration. The industry is optimistic that the Spring Festival file "good start" will drive the recovery of the moviegoing market throughout the year.

The third is the consumer market: mass consumption is active, high-end consumption is picking up. Meituan's 2024 Spring Festival "Eat, drink and Play" consumption insight shows that the life service industry has achieved a "good start", the average daily consumption scale of the Spring Festival holiday increased by 36% year-on-year, an increase of more than 155% compared with 2019, and the consumption scale of Guangdong, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Zhejiang, Shandong and other provinces ranks among the forefront of the country. Consumption in areas below the fourth line grew fastest year-on-year, and the sinking market ushered in a strong recovery, becoming a "new engine" to stimulate holiday economic growth. Under the trend of returning home for reunions and traveling for the New Year, personalized needs such as exploring the New Year flavor of small towns and lantern night Tours in scenic spots have led to rising consumption.

In the high-end consumer market, taking the duty-free Hainan Island as an example, compared with the 2023 Spring Festival holiday (a total of 7 days, 1 day less than this year), the amount of shopping this year has increased by nearly 60%. According to statistics, during the eight-day holiday, the number of duty-free shopping on Hainan's outlying islands reached 297,700 people, with per capita consumption of 8,358 yuan. The Spring Festival market sales continued to pick up, which made a good start for Chinese consumption this year. Ding Shuang, chief economist for Greater China and North Asia at Standard Chartered Bank, said that in the third and fourth quarters of last year, the growth rate of per capita consumer spending exceeded the growth rate of income, indicating that people are willing to spend their excess savings. This year, policies will continue to promote reasonable economic growth, helping to improve employment and income expectations, and consumption will continue to be the largest contributor to China's economic growth.