The 2023 Chinese Labor Day Holiday saw an explosion in domestic travel and tourism, with spending and movement exceeding 2019 levels as people were able to travel unimpeded for the first time since the start of the pandemic. Meanwhile, international travel increased significantly from previous years, but failed to recover to 2019 levels, despite a surge in demand. We break down the latest holiday travel data from China’s government ministries and online travel agencies to discuss the rebound in Chinese tourism and the latest travel trends.
The Chinese Labor Day Holiday in 2023 saw a huge surge in travel and tourism, as the number of domestic trips recovered and even surpassed 2019 levels for the first time since the start of the pandemic, according to data from China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism (MOCT) and various online travel agencies (OTAs).
China’s Labor Day Holiday, which took place from April 29 to May 3, 2023, is one of the three annual “Golden Week” holidays, along with the Chinese New Year and the National Day holidays. The holiday has therefore become one of the country’s peak tourist seasons, with hundreds of millions setting off for holidays and family visits every year. However, travel during the Labor Day holiday in the last few years, and 2022 in particular, saw significantly reduced numbers due to travel restrictions related to COVID-19.
The 2023 Labor Day Holiday is the first national holiday since the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions in late 2022 in which domestic travel has completely recovered to – and even surpassed – pre-pandemic levels. This impressive rebound suggests that the country’s tourism and travel industry has largely recovered from the impact of the pandemic and that the anxieties surrounding travel and being in crowded places that lingered for some people during the 2023 Chinese New Year holiday have mostly disappeared.
Below we look at the latest data from the MOCT and Chinese OTAs on China’s domestic and international travel during the 2023 May Day holiday and discuss emerging travel trends.
Overview of 2023 Chinese Labor Day Holiday travel
Domestic travel exceeds 2019 levels
According to data released by the MOCT on May 3, there were a total of 274 million domestic trips during the May Day holiday nationwide, a year-on-year increase of 70.83 percent. This is equivalent to over 119 percent of the numbers recorded in the same period in 2019. Meanwhile, revenue from domestic tourism reached RMB 148 billion (approx. US$21.4 billion), a year-on-year increase of 128.9 percent and reaching 100.7 percent of the levels recorded in the same period in 2019.
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According to the Ministry of Transport (MOT), there were an average of 54 million trips per day across national highways, waterways, and airlines during the holiday, an increase of 162.9 percent from 2022.
Among the daily trips, an estimated 18.2 million were made by rail, up 464.4 percent from the same period in 2022; 32.6 million were made by road, up 99.1 percent; 1.4 million were made via waterways, up 114.2 percent; and around 1.9 million were made through air, up 507.4 percent from 2022.
There was also estimated to have been an average of around 62.1 million vehicles on national highways per day, the majority of which were small passenger cars, around 56.3 million per day on average.
Domestic flights rebound
According to data from FlightAI, the flight tracking platform owned by Trip.com Group (which also owns OTA Ctrip), there were over 80,000 domestic flights made during the Chinese Labor Day Holiday, with the daily average around 15 percent higher than in 2019.
Demand for flights appears to have outpaced supply; although domestic flight operations have returned to full capacity, the search popularity of flight tickets was 162 percent higher than in the same period in 2019.
The average price of flight tickets has also increased by 39 percent from 2019 to RMB 1,211 for one-way domestic flight tickets.
The most popular domestic flight routes were those between Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Chengdu.
Outbound travel increases, but remains below pre-pandemic levels
Outbound travel also recorded a major increase, as travelers were able to leave the country for the first May Day holiday since the start of the pandemic. According to Ctrip data, the overall volume of bookings for outbound travel increased by nearly 700 percent compared with the same period last year, with outbound air ticket and hotel bookings increasing by nearly 900 percent and 450 percent, respectively, compared with the same period in 2022.
However, despite the jump in international bookings from 2022, the volume of international flight bookings has yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels. According to Ctrip data, international flights during the Labor Day Holiday reached about 40 percent of the level recorded in 2019, despite search interest increasing by more than 60 percent compared to that same year.
Meanwhile, according to the Chinese OTA Tuniu, nearly 30 percent of users that traveled overseas went to Hong Kong and Macau. Other popular locations included Thailand, the Maldives, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Russia, and Fiji.
The slow recovery of international travel to and from China is partly because there are still fewer international flight routes in operation than there were prior to the pandemic. This is particularly true of flights to Europe and North America, with US-China flights reportedly still down 94 percent from pre-pandemic levels at the end of April 2023. On May 3, 2023, the US Department of Transportation issued an order allowing Chinese airlines to operate 12 round-trips to and from the US per week, a move that could help to increase travel between the two countries.
This has meant that prices for international tickets have remained relatively high, although this is a problem that persists across all of Asia, not just China. According to Ctrip data, the average cost of a one-way international flight ticket during the Labor Day Holiday was RMB 2,104 (approx. US$304), an increase of 34 percent from the same period in 2019.
Consumption and cultural activities rebound
In addition to the recovery of travel, the Chinese Labor Day Holiday also saw a major uptick in sales for tourist attractions, events, and activities, with numbers in some cases exceeding 2019 levels.
For instance, according to Ctrip data, the number of tickets sold for domestic scenic areas increased ninefold from the previous year and doubled from the same period in 2019. The five most popular scenic spots for surrounding tourists were: Shanghai Disney Resort, Humble Administrator’s Garden, Huangshan Scenic Area, Mount Emei, and Mount Huashan.
