Global Courant
BEIJING – After a strong summer, China’s travel market is about to get a new boost as Golden Week arrives.
More than 21 million people are expected to take a flight in eight days – the equivalent of almost everyone in Australia getting on a plane in just over a week.
The public holiday of September 29 – October 6 includes both the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day, which does not always happen because the date of the former depends on the lunar calendar.
The extra day is a bonus after the population was effectively denied the opportunity to travel during the years of Covid-19.
“More than 21 million passengers will travel by air during the holiday season,” Mr Jin Junhao, deputy director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said at a briefing in Beijing on September 15. There will be around 14,000 domestic passengers in the country alone. flights per day, the regulator said.
As Chinese tourists rush to book flights, airfares are rising – by more than double on some of the more popular routes. Air China Ltd economy class tickets from Beijing to Chengdu on September 29 cost 1,800 yuan (S$342), compared to 680 yuan for September 22.
Long-haul international flights such as Shanghai-Sydney will also double or exceed fares later in October.
Higher fares to some extent reflect the growing popularity of some of China’s more distant destinations, made more attractive by longer holidays, online travel agency Tongcheng said in a report.
Places like Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, Ningxia and Heilongjiang in the far northeast are among the most popular. According to the report, there are more than ten times as many searches for Xinjiang-related travel packages than a year ago.
The eight-day holiday also makes longer trips possible. A survey by data and analytics firm ForwardKeys shows that 37 percent of travelers plan to stay six to eight nights at their destination, an increase of 3 percentage points from 2019, before the pandemic.
“Airline ticket data also shows that there has been an increase in bookings by solo travelers and couples, something tour operators, hoteliers and retailers should keep in mind this Golden Week,” Ms. Nancy Dai, an analyst at ForwardKeys, wrote in the report. “For young travelers, personalized options that meet their needs are becoming increasingly popular,”
Outbound travel is also finally picking up, with momentum building after Chinese authorities lifted a ban on group travel in August.
Favorable access policies in countries such as Thailand have also helped. Data from flight tracker Umetrip shows that the number of bookings for international routes for the holiday period is approaching 1 million.
Trip.com said outbound travel bookings on its platform are almost 20 times higher than during the holidays last year, when China still had rigid Covid-19 policies such as mandatory quarantine and testing.
Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and the United Kingdom are among the most popular overseas destinations.
