China's consumption posted a remarkable rebound during the 2023 Spring Festival, the most important holiday after the country optimized its Covid-19 response in December last year, sending out an encouraging signal about the swift recovery of the economy, which will also help lift up the global economy. During the previous three years' Spring Festival holidays people were encouraged to stay in their localities to prevent large-scale virus infections.
A total of 308 million domestic trips were made in China during the weeklong holiday, recovering to 88.6% of the level during the pre-epidemic 2019 Spring Festival, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Domestic tourism revenue generated during the holiday totaled CNY375.8 billion, or 73.1% of the level during the same period in 2019. Sanya, in Hainan, saw groups of tourists flying from across the country to enjoy sunshine as well as duty-free shopping. According to data from the Department of Commerce of Hainan, sales at the province's 12 offshore duty-free shops totaled CNY1.69 billion in the first five days of the holiday, up 20.03% compared with the 2022 Spring Festival, while up 325% compared with the same period during the 2019 Spring Festival.
Outbound travel bookings soared by 640% over the weeklong Spring Festival. Southeast Asian destinations were the favorites. Overseas hotel and international flight bookings were up by more than four times over the holiday from the year before. Apart from tourism and retail, the film market also got back on its feet during the seven-day holiday. The box office exceeded CNY6.734 billion, surpassing revenue of CNY5.8 billion during 2019 Spring Festival, according to box office tracker Dengta Data. This year's Spring Festival holiday saw the second highest-grossing box office sales to date, Chinese ticketing platform Maoyan showed. Seven films hit the market during the Spring Festival.
“The consumption rebound shows that consumers' expectations weren't as seriously impacted as some analysts thought, and Chinese people's confidence in the sustainable development of the super-sized economy remains unchanged,” Cao Heping, Economist at Peking University, told the Global Times. Meanwhile, the country's logistics sector is maintaining smooth operations to ensure the delivery of cargo at home and across borders. As China's economy continues to gather steam, international organizations and financial institutions project a higher growth rate for China this year. Economists projected that China's GDP growth may accelerate to 7.2% year-on-year in the second quarter, while the whole-year growth may hit 4.9%, the Global Times reports. Consumption contributed to 32.8% of China’s economic growth last year, driving GDP growth by 1.0 percentage point.
