China's New Year spenders prioritized domestic travel over goods purchases

Every year, we gather key indicators on tourism and leisure spending to gauge the economy during China's most important holiday period. In 2026, the New Year (also known as the Spring Festival) saw a general uptick in spending, but an outsized surge in travel -- especially to domestic destinations.

We've compiled this dashboard using the latest figures from the ministries overseeing culture, tourism, and transport. (The trends contrast with last year, which saw New Year spending return towards its pre-pandemic trend, but with fewer differences between spending categories.)

Inter-regional passenger flows this year hit a historic high of 2.8 billion trips, as our first chart shows. The steep increase from 2025 to 2026 contrasts with how little changed these figures were in 2024-25. 

Consumer psychology helps explain what happened. Our second chart visualizes the central bank's depositor survey. We see a meaningful gap: the willingness to purchase "large commodities" leveled off after last year's increase, but the willingness to spend on tourism has kept rising steadily.

Analyzing airline traffic reveals a further trend. The 2025 holiday was notable for a surge in post-pandemic international travel, while domestic flights declined. This year, that tendency had flipped. Domestic flights were up significantly, while international flight growth was relatively little changed. (This could reflect consumers prioritizing affordability and avoiding risks, and tracks with sluggish tourism figures for Thailand -- which has yet to recover its popularity with the Chinese market.)

If consumer spending can be a zero-sum game, it appears that movie theaters were relative losers during this Spring Festival. Box-office revenue and attendance were both sharply down. (This could reflect not only changed consumer preferences but the lack of a blockbuster at the level of last year's "Ne Zha 2.")

We conclude with an update of last year's headline chart, which combines long-term trends for total tourism numbers and revenue (in absolute numbers and growth rates) with per capita spending, which has leveled off.

If you are a CEIC user, access the story here.