China touts record spending over Lunar New Year holiday

Travel and spending during China’s Lunar New Year holiday hit new records this year, giving the government an encouraging boost as it seeks to ramp up the ailing economy.

Travel and spending during China’s Lunar New Year holiday hit new records this year, giving the government an encouraging boost as it seeks to ramp up the ailing economy. A total of 501 million trips were made within China during the eight-day travel season, which began on January 28, according to data released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on Wednesday. This represented a 5.9% increase from the same period last year. Tourism spending surged by 7%, reaching 677 billion yuan ($93 billion), compared to the previous year. The average daily spending per trip was 168.9 yuan ($23.2) this year, according to a CNN calculation based on official data, a modest increase from last year’s 166.8 yuan ($22.9). However, the figure was about 5% lower than the pre-pandemic level of 176.9 yuan ($24.3) recorded in 2019. For cross-border travel, an average of 1.795 million daily trips were made into and out of China during the holiday, according to data from the National Immigration Administration released on Wednesday. The number was slightly higher than the pre-pandemic average of 1.79 million daily trips in 2019. The increase this year was largely driven by foreign visitors, with their numbers rising by 22.9% compared to 2024. China began rolling out visa-free access to dozens of countries over the past year, in a bid to boost tourism and drive consumption. “We’re glad to see that as China puts more countries on the visa-free list and fully relaxes and improves visa-free transit policy, the Chinese New Year is becoming a worldwide celebrated festival,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian at a regular press briefing on Wednesday.