China’s tourism sector during the Spring Festival period of 2024 (Chinese New Year Golden Week), demonstrated a robust recovery from the impacts of the pandemic and indicating a positive outlook for the future of both domestic and international travel in China.
Chinese New Year Festival
Chinese New Year holidays are public holidays in China starting in either January or February every year based on the Chinese lunar calendar and lasting for 7 days.
In 2021, the Chinese New Year lands on 12 February, Friday, and is a year of Ox.
Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year or Spring Festival, includes a Golden Week in China with a huge amount of travelers traveling domestically and overseas. It is one of the most important holidays in China.
The celebrations last up to 16 days, starting on Chinese New Year Eve though the public holidays are 7 days.
It is also celebrated worldwide in regions and countries with significant Overseas Chinese or Sinophone populations, including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Mauritius, as well as many in North America and Europe.
In Chinese culture and East Asian countries, the festival is commonly referred to as the Spring Festival, marking the end of winter and the beginning of the spring season, as the spring season in the lunisolar calendar traditionally starts with lichun, the first of the 24 solar terms which the festival celebrates around the time of.
Check out other Chinese Golden Weeks and Chinese Valentine's Day.
Chinese New Year Traditions
Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the New Year vary widely, and the evening preceding the New Year's Day is frequently regarded as an occasion for Chinese families to gather for the annual reunion dinner.
It is also traditional for every family to thoroughly clean their house, in order to sweep away any ill-fortune and to make way for incoming good luck.
Another custom is the decoration of windows and doors with red paper-cuts and couplets. Popular themes among these paper-cuts and couplets include that of good fortune or happiness, wealth, and longevity.
Other activities include lighting firecrackers and giving money in red paper envelopes.
During the festival, people around China will prepare different gourmet for families and guests. Influenced by the flourished cultures, foods from different places look and taste totally different. Among them, the most well-known ones are dumplings from northern China and Tangyuan from southern China.
The biggest event of any Chinese New Year's Eve is the annual reunion dinner. Dishes consisting of special meats are served at the tables, as the main course for the dinner and offering for the New Year. This meal is comparable to Thanksgiving dinner in the U.S. and remotely similar to Christmas dinner in other countries with a high percentage of Christians.
Chinese New Year Holiday Sees Surge in Domestic Tourism with 375 Billion Yuan Revenue
308 million domestic tourism trips were made during the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday this year, up 23.1% year on year, and recovered to 88.6% in the same period of 2019, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
China saw 41% less travelers during Chinese New Year 2021
March 8 is the last day of the Chinese New Year 2021. According to the data of the State Council, the total number of passengers sent by railways, highways, waterways, and civil aviation is expected to reach 870.836 million person-trips, 70.9% lower than the same period in 2019 and 40.8% lower than the same period […]
JD.com’s Jingxi platform saw surging sales from college students in 2021
College students’ e-commerce orders on Jingxi platform more than quadrupled in January 2021, according to JD.com. Jingxi is JD.com’s social commerce platform, positioned to compete with Pinduoduo in lower-tier cities, and running Chinese New Year (CNY) Grand Promotion like other e-commerce platforms in China. Annual active consumers of Taobao Deals, a similar product from Alibaba Group […]
Chinese New Year tourism trends 2020
Other than returning to the hometown to reunite with the family, more and more Chinese people now choose the reverse route of Chinese New Year transportation or spending the Chinese New Year by touring. The overall popularity of Chinese New Year tourism has increased greatly; and, the proportion of the post-90s generation who chose to […]
Post-60s and post-70s the main driving force in China’s outbound tourism consumption
Singapore emerged the 3rd largest market in Southeast Asia for Chinese tourists spending over Chinese New Year, with an increase of 34% in average spending per Chinese tourist, according to findings from Alipay on overseas spending and mobile payment behavior of Chinese consumers across the 54 markets where Alipay is accepted during the 2019 Lunar […]
Baidu app’s daily active users grew to 300 million over one night
CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala, or Chunwan, is a Chinese New Year special produced by China Central Television (CCTV) shown on the eve of Chinese New Year on its TV channels. CCTV now requires mobile app advertisers with daily active users of at least 100 million. Otherwise, the server would crash upon broadcasting the advertisement.
Chinese New Year tourists up 12.1% to 386 mn person-trips in 2018
According to the China National Tourism Administration, during the Chinese New Year holiday, a total of 386 million tourists traveled domestically, an increase of 12.1% over the same period of last year. Domestic tourism revenue reached 47.5 billion yuan, an increase of 12.6% over last year’s holiday.
Chinese New Year Survey 2018
Chinese New Year is the most important festival for Chinese people. It marks the beginning of a new Lunar New Year. Before the new Year of Dog begins on February 16, Lightspeed Research launched an online survey in China’s mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan to ask panelists about their plan, attitude and behavior during this […]
WeChat Usage Stats for Chinese New Year 2017
WeChat users made 2.1 billion minutes of free calls and exchanged 46 billion red packets (hongbao)on WeChat during the past Chinese New Year 2017, five times more than the previous year according to WeChat.
What are consumers buying for Chinese New Year 2017?
Shopping of new year goods (a.k.a. “Nianhuo” in China) is a tradition of Chinese New Year (“CNY”) when retailers should get ready in advance. Data from Alibaba revealed some insights about this shopping season.
Chinese New Year to receive 343 million person-trips
China tourism market is to receive 343 million person-trips with an increase of 13.6% YoY during the coming Chinese New Year (27 Jan 2017 to 2 Feb 2017) according to China National Tourism Administration (“CNTA”).
Alibaba adopting AR in hongbao campaign for Chinese New Year
Hongbao is an attractive tactic and often effective one for China internet companies to grow user base and engagement. And, it is one must-have activity among China internet users during Chinese New Year festival. Facing the coming Chinese New Year, Alipay is launching a special Hongbao campaign utilizing Augmented Reality to make it more interesting […]
6 Million Chinese Tourists Visited Japan during CNY 2016
The number of outbound Chinese tourists surged during the Chinese New Year holidays in 2016 and many countries and regions have been ready to meet the Chinese tourist shopping tide. Japan, Thailand, and Australia were popular outbound destinations.
China Travel Insights for Chinese New Year 2016
China’s post-70s and post-80s drive the outbound tourism market during Chinese New Year in 2016 according to lvmama.com. Hainan and the northeastern regions are popular domestic travel destinations. Japan and South Korea are popular outbound destinations during CNY in 2016.