Photo taken on Oct. 3, 2021 shows tourists at the illuminated Xiangyang ancient town,
Xiangyang city, central China’s Hubei province. (Photo by Yang Dong/People’s Daily Online)
Despite the lingering COVID-19 epidemic, Chinese people have shown great enthusiasm for
consumption during this year’s National Day holiday, or the Golden Week holiday, which ran
from Oct. 1 to 7.
The National Day holiday has always been considered an important window into China’s
economic vitality. Compared with previous ones, this year’s National Day holiday has
demonstrated some new consumption trends, according to Wang Bin, deputy director general
of the Department of Market Operation and Consumption Promotion of the Ministry of
Commerce.
More tourists visited local or neighboring destinations or simply spent their leisure time at
home; consumers showed more interest in green, intelligent and health care products, and
remained passionate about individualized, quality, and high-end goods; meanwhile, as online
e-commerce platforms integrate with brick-and-mortar stores, experience-oriented and
scenario-based consumption demands have grown and are expected to rise continuously in the
future, Wang said.
As many people called off their travel plans during July and August because of the pandemic,
they were eager to “compensate” themselves with relaxing trips during the week-long
National Day holiday.
From Oct. 1 to 7, China witnessed 515 million domestic tourist trips, which generated over
389 billion yuan ($60.37 billion) in tourism revenue, according to China’s Ministry of Culture
and Tourism.
Data from the country’s Ministry of Transport suggest that the transport service providers in
China handled about over 400 million passenger trips during the just-ended holiday.
Against the backdrop of regular epidemic prevention and control, people’s ways of spending
their vacations are altering gradually. During the National Day holiday, tourists mainly
traveled within the provinces they live.
Traveling light, short-distance trips, and spending leisure time in hotels were particularly
favored by tourists, resort hotels in the suburbs of big cities, quality rural B&Bs and hotels
near theme parks were very busy, and recreational vehicle camping and road trips to nearby
destinations were popular during the Golden Week holiday.
Data showed that 49.1 percent of tourists made cross-city tours within the provinces they live,
up 4.1 percentage points from the same period last year. 88.3 percent of tourists traveled no
more than 300 kilometers away from where they live, and 55.8 percent of tourists drove to
their destinations during the holiday, 10 percentage points higher than last year.
The dividends of China’s accelerating consumption upgrading were prominently displayed
during the Golden Week holiday.
Sales of flowers surged during the holiday, said Lyu Yan, purchasing manager at Chinese e-
commerce platform Hema Fresh’s flower department, who noted that decorating houses with
flowers has become one of the ways of consumers to improve the quality of life.
From Oct. 1 to 4, Hema Fresh’s flower department saw the sales of its flowers rocket by 290
percent year on year, according to Lyu.
Data from China’s e-commerce giant JD.com suggest that home appliances, computers and
other office equipment, mobile phones, food and beverages and digital products were the five
most popular categories among consumers during the Golden Week holiday.
The transaction volume of robot vacuums grew over 30 percent year on year in Beijing and
Shanghai and that of smart devices for health monitoring in Beijing and Guangzhou saw a
year-on-year increase of over two times, according to the data, which indicate that high-
quality and customized products are preferred by more and more people.
Consumption upgrading has also swept across China’s rural areas. Data from Tmall Global,
China’s largest cross-border online marketplace, show that the spending of consumers from
small cities and rural areas on imports grew even faster than that of their counterparts in
relatively larger cities during the National Day holiday, with the consumption of imports in
some townships and villages increasing over 55 percent year on year.
Going to the movies represented a new consumption trend during the holiday. With more than
90 million tickets sold for movies screened during the seven-day holiday, China’s box office
reached nearly 4.39 billion yuan from Oct. 1 to 7, the second highest among those of China’s
National Day holidays, according to data from China Film Administration.
“The Battle at Lake Changjin”, a film released just on the eve of the holiday, had grossed over
3.4 billion yuan as of Oct. 7. It has broken more than 10 records in China’s film history and
significantly contributed to the country’s box office revenue during the period.
The increase in passenger flow and surge in online orders have mirrored China’s stronger
consumer confidence as the epidemic situation has been improving in the country.
Data from China’s service-focused e-commerce giant Meituan Dianping suggest that
consumers’ total expenditure on various services and products via the platform, which cover
catering, accommodation, tourism, leisure and recreation, as well as traveling, rose about 30
percent year on year during the holiday and 51.6 percent from the same period in 2019.
Experts pointed out that the thriving consumption during the Golden Week holiday was
underpinned by China’s super-large market and enormous demand potential and reflected the
high-quality development of the Chinese economy as well as the steady rise in Chinese
residents’ income.
