The Chinese New Year is full of dragons and tigers, and the New Year is celebrated with great success. The Spring Festival is the traditional peak season for consumption, and it is also a time when various consumer demands are concentrated. This year's Spring Festival holiday is coming to an end. During this eight-day holiday with a strong New Year flavor, people return to their hometowns for reunions, visit relatives and friends, travel for vacations, have dinners and have fun. Shopping malls and supermarkets are crowded, online and offline shopping is in full swing, and consumption power is strong. Amid the fireworks, we witnessed the surging vitality of China's economy steadily moving forward. What are the characteristics of consumption during the Spring Festival this year? As a barometer of China’s economy in the first half of the year, what new picture of economic vitality does Spring Festival consumption outline?

Expand domestic demand to boost Spring Festival consumption

There are many clever tricks to "pamper guests"

　　The red Spring Festival market and the hot Spring Festival consumption are inseparable from various consumption promotion activities. From the launch of the "National Online New Year Shopping Festival" by the Commerce Department, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism organized and carried out the 2024 Spring Festival themed cultural and tourism activities of "Celebrate the New Year with Joy"; to the 2024 National Spring Festival Culture and Tourism Consumption Month, held with rich content and form Various cultural and tourism consumption promotion activities, as well as the Ministry of Commerce’s launch of time-honored brand carnival and “domestic trendy products” activities to celebrate the New Year, various regions have introduced consumption promotion policies, and various activities are held according to local conditions, with real discounts to optimize the consumption experience , richer consumption scenarios and more considerate consumer services, making the market more exciting and more dynamic.

　　During the Spring Festival, the world heritage scenery attracts visitors from all over. In Zhangzhou, Fujian, the quaint scenery of Nanjing Tulou Scenic Area is unforgettable.

　　The Spring Festival in Quanzhou, Fujian Province is indispensable without the support of the national intangible cultural heritage of Sichuan Lion. The two lions jumped up and down, attracting bursts of applause.

　　It is understood that during the Spring Festival this year, Fujian Province organized more than 2,000 promotional activities with different themes, and issued consumer coupons and consumer subsidies exceeding 150 million yuan.

　　In Sichuan, the Zigong Lantern Festival, which is famous both at home and abroad, uses more than 1,000 lantern groups to innovatively create four major sections: "Chinese Movement, Songs of the Golden Age, Taste of China, and Romantic China", integrating profound Chinese culture into the glowing lights.

　　From the first day to the seventh day of the lunar month, the number of visitors to China Lantern World was 420,000, an increase of 27.2% over the same period last year. During the Spring Festival, Sichuan issued nearly 300 million yuan in consumer coupons and consumption subsidies, and launched a series of preferential policies such as free tickets for tourist attractions or buy-one-get-one-free discounts on tickets, travel agency incentives, and reduction of highway tolls for passenger cars outside the province to attract tourists to Sichuan.

　　As of 15:00 on February 16, Jiuzhaigou Scenic Area, a well-known tourist attraction in Sichuan, had received a total of 157,800 domestic and foreign tourists, exceeding the highest level in the same period in previous years.

Xiamen-Jinjiang "small three links" welcome the peak of cross-strait family visits

　　Due to the extra one or two days of vacation compared to previous years, the way tourists travel during the Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon has also changed. Many tourists choose to return home to visit relatives first, and then travel with relatives and friends. The "visit relatives + travel" model has become the new mainstream during the Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon. Fujian is a famous hometown of overseas Chinese, and more than 80% of Taiwanese people have their ancestral home in Fujian. Since the Spring Festival travel rush, the "mini three links" across the Taiwan Strait have also ushered in a new peak in passenger flow to visit relatives.

　　As the largest cross-strait maritime passenger route, the Xiamen-Jinjiang route has 16 round-trip flights every day, and the voyage only takes half an hour, making it a "golden channel" for Taiwanese compatriots to travel between the two sides. Since the Spring Festival holiday, the number of passengers on the Xiamen-Jinjiang "Small Three Links" route has grown steadily.

　　According to Xiamen Customs statistics, since the Spring Festival, the customs has supervised a total of 344 inbound and outbound voyages of Xiamen Jin's "small three links", a year-on-year increase of 6.8 times, and 70,000 people entering and exiting, a year-on-year increase of 23.9 times.

Extra-long vacation ignites travel craze

Inbound and outbound passenger flow has increased severalfold

　　This year’s Spring Festival has an 8-day long holiday. As China’s visa-free “circle of friends” continues to expand and the capacity of international air routes continues to grow, outbound tourism consumption is particularly hot. In particular, the inbound and outbound passenger flow in domestic transportation hub cities has increased exponentially. .

　　According to customs statistics, in the six days before the Spring Festival holiday, there were 552,000 inbound and outbound passengers at Shanghai Airport, with an average of 92,000 passengers per day, a new high in the past four years.

　　In the 20 days before the Spring Festival travel rush, there were 1.686 million inbound and outbound passengers at Shanghai Pudong Airport, an increase of 6 times year-on-year. The average daily number of people entering and leaving the country has exceeded 80,000, setting new single-day records this year.

　　Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, the largest hub airport in South China, has seen more than 730,000 inbound and outbound passengers, a year-on-year increase of 3.9 times, with an average of 38,000 passengers entering and exiting every day.

　　As the largest international passenger throughput in the central and western regions of my country, the number of inbound and outbound passengers at the Chengdu aviation port reached 315,000, a year-on-year increase of 5.7 times.

“Visa-free circle of friends” expansion

Travel abroad during the Chinese New Year

　　Although the Spring Festival holiday is coming to an end, Chengdu Tianfu International Airport is still crowded with people, with an average of more than 1,500 inbound and outbound passengers checked and released per hour.

　　Since the Spring Festival travel rush, Shanghai’s international flights have continued to increase. According to statistics from Pudong Airport Customs, Pudong Airport currently operates 115 international destinations, 51 countries and regions, and 76 airlines operating international routes, representing year-on-year increases of 71.6%, 21.4%, and 20.6% respectively.

　　As Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand successively announced visa-free policies for China, related routes continued to be popular during the Spring Festival. At Nanjing Lukou International Airport, flights to Singapore have increased from 12 to 17 per week.

　　According to statistics, since February 5, the average daily number of inbound and outbound flights at Nanjing Lukou International Airport has remained at more than 50, and the number of inbound and outbound passengers has increased 2.7 times year-on-year.

　　Up to now, my country has fully exempted visas from 23 countries, covering five continents. This also means that Chinese tourists can take their passports and "go" without worrying about whether the visa is approved, whether the processing time is available, etc.

　　In addition, China has concluded mutual visa exemption agreements covering different passport types with 157 countries, and has reached agreements or arrangements with 44 countries to simplify visa procedures. There are also more than 60 countries and regions that provide Chinese citizens with visa-free or visa-on-arrival facilities, making it easier for Chinese tourists to travel.

Cross-border consumption boom

Leading the new consumption trend in the New Year

　　Purchasing new year's goods is one of the must-have items for Chinese people to welcome the New Year, which means their expectations and blessings for the New Year. During the Spring Festival, at the Xinjiang-China-Kazakhstan Horgos International Border Cooperation Center, major duty-free shops launched fancy consumption-promoting combinations. The “Spring Festival Open” and “Thousands of Dragon Year Gifts” organized various shopping discounts to create a The atmosphere is full of energy, steaming and festive.

　　The China-Kazakhstan Cooperation Center spans China and Kazakhstan and is the first cross-border economic cooperation zone jointly established by my country and Kazakhstan. During the Spring Festival, the China-Kazakhstan Cooperation Center was bustling with activity, with an average daily passenger flow of 12,000, ushering in a peak of cross-border consumption. There are a dazzling array of global specialty products such as Russian matryoshka dolls, chocolates from Kazakhstan, grains, oils and non-staple foods from Kyrgyzstan, milk powder from Switzerland, coffee from Vietnam and so on. As of now, the China-Kazakhstan Cooperation Center has more than 1,000 merchants settled in the Chinese area alone, and there are more than 200 duty-free companies selling nearly a thousand kinds of commodities from more than 10 countries.

　　Chinese tourists entering the China-Kazakhstan Cooperation Center have a duty-free shopping allowance of RMB 8,000 per person per day. In order to provide tourists with a good shopping experience, the customs has added 12 new passenger smart gate channels, which can achieve rapid customs clearance in 5 seconds.

　　According to customs statistics, since January this year, nearly 400,000 people have entered and exited the China-Kazakhstan Cooperation Center. In the five days from the third day to the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, the number of tourists visiting the China-Kazakhstan Cooperation Center reached 56,000, a year-on-year increase of 231%.

7 days before Spring Festival

Hangzhou cross-border e-commerce has exceeded 1 million orders

　　In recent years, thanks to the continuous development of cross-border logistics and cross-border e-commerce, the market supply for the Chinese New Year this year has become more abundant and diversified. More and more “foreign New Year’s goods” are appearing in consumers’ shopping carts, and the online and offline “foreign New Year’s goods” markets are heating up simultaneously. Many cross-border e-commerce platforms and offline supermarkets have launched “New Year Goods Festivals” to bring consumers a full range of good New Year goods, filling the atmosphere of the Year of the Dragon. Many consumers hope to enrich their "New Year's goods list" by purchasing high-quality imported goods at more affordable prices through cross-border e-commerce platforms.

　　During the Spring Festival, in the Hangzhou Cross-border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone, rows of shelves were neatly stacked with “specialties” from all over the world, and staff were sorting and packaging them, creating a busy scene.

　　Through the cross-border e-commerce bonded import model, consumers in most areas can receive the goods in about two days after placing an order on the platform. Seven days before the Spring Festival, the customs supervised, inspected and released more than 1.28 million orders of import and export goods in the Hangzhou Cross-border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone, with a value of 156 million yuan.

　　During the Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon, the "Yi-Xin-Ou" trains will transport Chinese products such as new energy vehicles, mobile phones, and computers to more than 50 countries and more than 160 cities at a frequency of 8 trains per day.

　　During this Spring Festival, an average of 30 China-Europe freight trains depart from China to the world every day. Since the beginning of this year, more than 1,800 China-Europe freight trains have operated, establishing an important trade channel between the Eurasian continent. It connects 112 cities in China and 219 cities in 25 European countries.

　　(CCTV News Client Headquarters reporter Ye Huan Pang Ding Ma Ning Sun Jinman Xu Dawei)