China's upcoming Spring Festival holiday to spark travel, consumption frenzy

*Train tickets for China's upcoming Spring Festival travel rush went on sale on Friday.

*The 40-day travel rush will see hundreds of millions of people braving bustling trains and other crowded vehicles to reunite with their families.

*More than 66 percent of the potential tourists would like to enjoy ice-and-snow travel in the 2023-2024 winter season, with the number of tourists exceeding 400 million and revenue reaching 550 billion yuan.

BEIJING, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- When Bao Aizhen's alarm rang at 7:58 a.m. on Friday, less than a month before Spring Festival, China's traditional occasion for family reunion, the Beijing-based nanny immediately opened a ticket booking app on her phone.

Hailing from Macheng in the central Chinese province of Hubei, Bao is ready to make the seasonal trip back to her hometown in a period that sees the largest migration of people on the planet. This year, well aware of the difficulty of securing a train ticket, she decided to change her destination to Nanchang, a stop further down the line about 300 kilometers away.

When the time on her phone jumped to 8 a.m., and the ticket-booking channel opened, she swiftly clicked on the button. Yes! She let out a breath. The ticket cost her 306.5 yuan (around 43 U.S. dollars), while her train journey will last more than 14 hours. But for the 48-year-old who has worked in Beijing for three years, it means home, sweet home.

Train tickets for China's upcoming Spring Festival travel rush went on sale on Friday. The 40-day travel rush, also known as "Chunyun," will see hundreds of millions of people braving bustling trains and other crowded vehicles to reach home and reunite with their friends and families.

Passengers buy tickets at the ticket hall of Nanjing Railway Station in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province, Jan. 12, 2024. (Photo by Shi Jun/Xinhua)

TICKET BOOKING MADE EASIER

Chunyun this year starts on Jan. 26 and ends on March 5. The China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. noted that this year's peak season will see high travel demands among tourists, migrant workers and students.

To boost transportation capacity during this period, 12,700 trains will be arranged per day leading up to the festival on Feb. 10, and 12,800 trains thereafter. The railway network will be able to handle 14.4 percent more passengers before the festival and 12.6 percent more after the festival compared to the pre-pandemic levels of 2019.

Railway stations in Beijing, one of China's largest migrant-receiving cities, have made proper preparations for Chunyun.

According to Zheng Siyao, from the publicity department of Beijing South Railway Station, the pre-sale period for railway tickets lasts 15 days. On Friday, tickets for the first day of the Spring Festival travel rush, January 26, went on sale nationwide.

To cater to the ticketing needs of migrant workers and students heading home, new features on China's official railway ticket-booking app 12306 were introduced, allowing students and migrant workers to make reservation ahead of the pre-sale date.

International travelers are now also able to register on the 12306 website for online ticket purchases, and a new version of the Foreign Permanent Resident ID Card of the People's Republic of China was rolled on December 1, 2023. The railway authority has optimized the 12306 website and app to allow these cardholders to register and purchase tickets online.

"In recent years, online ticketing has become the norm for the Spring Festival travel rush, with 95 percent of ticket purchases at Beijing West Railway Station done online," said Yuan Xuran, from the publicity department of Beijing West Railway Station.

The station, one of the country's major railway hubs, set up three dedicated ticketing windows in both the north and south ticket halls.

The website 12306.cn has also rolled out an offline support system primarily targeting elderly people, international travelers, and others who prefer not to book tickets online.

The travel rush poses no small challenge for the aviation sector.

An estimated 80 million passenger trips, a record high, are likely to be handled by China's civil aviation sector during this year's Chunyun, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

This figure represents a 44.9-percent surge compared with the same period of 2023 and is an increase of 9.8 percent from the level recorded during the Spring Festival travel rush in 2019.

To handle the spike in air travel passenger levels, the country's airlines have planned to add over 2,500 flights during the 40-day period, taking into consideration the likely demand for trips to popular destinations in Southeast Asia, Japan, the Republic of Korea and other neighboring regions, said Liang Nan, a CAAC official.

Visitors watch a firework show during the opening ceremony of the 40th Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival at the Harbin Ice-Snow World in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Jan. 5, 2024. (Xinhua/Wang Jianwei)

TIME TO TRAVEL, TO HARBIN OR ABROAD

In anticipation of the upcoming Spring Festival holiday, Shanghai resident Xu Yilin and his family are preparing for a trip to Bangkok, drawn by the city's proximity, delightful climate, and delectable cuisine.

"We foresaw that domestic tourist spots would be overly crowded, and I am confident that my parents and son will enjoy the unique charm of Thailand," Xu said.

To cater to the travel demand during the 2024 Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, Shanghai-based Spring Tour travel agency has rolled out an extensive selection of nearly 3,000 products. Popular outbound travel destinations include Thailand and Malaysia.

Zhou Weihong, deputy general manager of Spring Tour travel agency, said that products for travel to countries like Britain, Croatia, and Portugal are already sold out, indicating a high demand for international travel.

Cruise ship holidays, too, are becoming a popular choice for New Year celebrations. China's first domestically-built large cruise ship, the Adora Magic City, is set to embark on a voyage on Feb. 9, garnering significant interest from tourists, according to Zhou.

Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Academy, expects the country's inbound and outbound trips to exceed 264 million visits this year, generating combined tourism revenue of 107 billion U.S. dollars.

In his view, domestic tourism, which has recovered rapidly in 2023, is also promising. He predicted that total domestic travel will exceed 6 billion visits in 2024 and that domestic tourism revenue is likely to surpass 6 trillion yuan.

According to research of a major online travel agency Tongcheng, ice-and-snow is the most popular theme for domestic travel, with Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, the most popular destination for the 2024 Spring Festival holiday.

A poll by the China Tourism Academy showed that more than 66 percent of the potential tourists would like to enjoy ice-and-snow travel in the 2023-2024 winter season, with the number of people embarking on ice-and-snow tours this winter expected to grow by 25 to 30 percent year-on-year to exceed 400 million, and revenue in this aspect to reach 550 billion yuan.

Lin Ning and her family planned to celebrate their Spring Festival in Heilongjiang, staying two days in Harbin before going to Mohe at the northernmost tip of China.

"I have always wanted to go there and this time my dream will come true," said the excited woman in Beijing. "There will be a lot of travelers during the Spring Festival, so I booked my flight tickets and hotel a month in advance."

Her concern was not groundless. Zhao Yiding, owner of eight homestays in Harbin, told Xinhua that all the houses have been booked since November, and the latest reservation has been made for Feb. 15.

Yao Lilong, manager of a local restaurant featuring northeastern specialties such as iron pot stew and frozen pear, said that they are also planning for the Spring Festival holiday. "Many of the restaurants are committed to fairness and agreed to not hiking prices," he said. "Also we will continue to serve free hot tea and extend business hours for our customers."