As the one-week Lunar New Year countdown begins, new travel data shows Asia Pacific travellers' booking preferences and patterns: early decision making, flying further, and prioritising regional getaways.
“Chinese New Year 2026 is shaping up to be a high-intent, regionally driven travel period…with [Chinese] travellers increasingly selective about where they book,” said Lina Ang, MD, International Property Sales at Sojern.
Chinese travellers are showing renewed appetite to head out, with outbound flight bookings from China rising 21% and hotel bookings up 23% compared to last year.
Their bookings are dominated by short-haul regional destinations such as Singapore, Thailand, Australia and South Korea. The data from travel marketing firm Sojern also noted a massive uptick of 102% increase in outbound travel to EMEA and a 91% rise to the US and Canada, underscoring the resurgence in long-haul interest to Europe.
Regionally, two destinations are receiving the spotlight.
Singapore’s outbound travel is up 23% for flights, especially with the recently added string of more than 600 extra flights to support the festive surge. Hotel bookings have gone up 34% YoY, driven largely by short-haul APAC trips. International arrivals have also gone up 15%, with mainland China led as the top source market with 3.1 million arrivals.
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Australia is also pulling in the international visitor numbers for Lunar New Year travel, with inbound flight bookings up 23% and hotel bookings up 20%, fuelled largely by Southeast Asian and East Asian travellers seeking longer stays and summer experiences.