Like hot air rising, Chinese travellers’ appetite for travel shows no signs of slowing. Over the week-long Lunar New Year holidays this year, Chinese travellers made 415 million domestic trips, an increase of 7.6% compared to the same period last year, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
During China’s biggest holiday, spending from domestic trips raked in 513.9 billion yuan (US$76.2 billion), an annual increase of 8.2%, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
This year, travellers hotly favoured destinations included Thailand, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, the United States, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
Travellers also made some 12.53 million border crossings into and out of China, an uptick of 11% compared to the same period, with Chinese residents crossing the border for personal reasons 7.22 million times, up 16 percent, Xinhua reported.
The growth in domestic and international travel and spending over the Lunar New Year underscores the rise of Chinese tourism and comes in spite of a slowing economy.
Last year, travellers made 386 million domestic trips that contributed 475 billion yuan in China’s travel revenue.
Meanwhile, international trips amounted to 143 million, and travellers were the world’s biggest spenders on international tourism, the United Nations World Tourism Organization said.