China’s ‘golden week’ holiday sees consumption boom as pent-up demand takes wing

Extended holiday period spurs wave of domestic travel, boosting spending at a time when economic activity is sorely needed

Growth forecasts adjusted upwards in light of positive developments, but analysts warn the uptick may be temporary as people return to routines

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Tourists visit a scenic spot in Sanya, south China’s Hainan Province, on Sunday. A popular tourist destination, Sanya is seeing a boom in traffic during the National Day holiday. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 10:00pm, 6 Oct 2023Updated: 9:30am, 9 Oct 2023

Cities across China have enjoyed pronounced spending sprees during the “golden week” holiday which wrapped up on Friday, but economists have warned the momentum may fade as pent-up demand fizzles out.

Data released by Chinese on-demand local services giant Meituan showed that average daily spending for services and retail shot up by 153 per cent across China, while consumption in dine-in services increased by 254 per cent compared with the same period in 2019.

This has made the eight-day holiday – extended this year as Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day coincided with one another – the busiest golden week in half a decade.

Among all Chinese cities, Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Chongqing and Shenzhen snatched the top five spots in terms of total consumption, while some niche tourism destinations – such as Linzhi of Tibet and Shanwei of Guangdong – saw the highest growth in hotel orders.

For the first seven days of the holiday, sales revenue of key retail and catering firms – as monitored by the Ministry of Commerce – rose by 9 per cent year on year. In major shopping streets across the country, meanwhile, the flow of consumers increased by 94.7 per cent.

Fliggy, an online travel platform under Alibaba Group, said the popularity of self-driving tours increased significantly during the holiday, with car rental orders rising more than 4.6 times compared to 2019. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

In Hainan, a tropical tourist hub and duty-free shopping mecca at the southern tip of China, a total of 1.01 billion yuan (US$140.24 million) in duty-free sales was recorded from September 29 to October 4. This represented an increase of 94.2 per cent over the same time last year, according to figures released by Haikou Customs.