China News Service, February 18 (Wei Chenxi) The 2024 Spring Festival is the first Spring Festival to be designated as a United Nations holiday. The strong New Year flavor, rich delicacies, and consumption boom... Chinese people celebrate the Spring Festival out of the blue. reached a new height, the vigorous vitality of China's economy has been fully demonstrated, attracting more and more global attention. What does the Chinese Spring Festival look like in the eyes of foreign media?

“The Chinese New Year atmosphere is stronger”

　　Dumplings, spring rolls, sugar oranges - the Associated Press noted the "special recipes" during the Chinese Spring Festival and pointed out that in Chinese culture, some people also eat longevity noodles, which symbolizes praying for longevity and pursuing a healthy and happy life.

During the 2024 Spring Festival holiday, the Three Streets and Two Lanes Pedestrian Street in Nanning, Guangxi held special activities to attract consumers. Photo courtesy of Guangxi Department of Commerce

　　Agence France-Presse and Reuters have both noticed that the 2024 Spring Festival Transport will be the first normalized Spring Festival Transport after China's COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control phase was transferred. According to data from the Ministry of Transport of China, it is predicted that during the Spring Festival in 2024, there will be approximately 9 billion people traveling, visiting relatives, and leisure in 40 days, which may reach a record high.

　　Reuters painted a picture to readers: On the eve of the annual Lunar New Year holiday, China has entered "high gear", with passengers boarding trains and planes to return to their hometowns, and families preparing for traditional reunions Welcomed with rice, everyone is "looking forward to the taste of hometown".

　　Agence France-Presse wrote, "The air on the train is filled with the fragrance of instant noodles; from the windows in the carriage, passengers look forward to the rural scenery on their way back."

　　"During the Spring Festival travel period, on February 7 (the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month) alone, China Railways transported 13.1 million passengers," Reuters reported.

　　Reuters also pointed out that during the Spring Festival travel period, in order to prevent severe weather from affecting the return journeys of millions of Chinese people, the Chinese government “has been increasing railway transport capacity” to effectively alleviate traffic problems. "In the huge railway network, about 1,873 passenger trains were added on this day alone, setting a new high."

“Chinese consumers are becoming active”

　　"Chinese consumers are becoming more active." Bloomberg quoted Frederic Neumann, an expert on Asian economics, as saying.

　　Many foreign media have noticed that China’s Spring Festival movie market continues to recover, and the record for Spring Festival movies in Chinese film history has been broken again.

Data map: The picture shows a cinema in Ganzhou, Jiangxi. People collect tickets from the self-service ticket machine. Photo by Liu Lixin

　　Singapore's "Lianhe Zaobao" pointed out that as of 21:00 on February 17, the total box office of China's 2024 Spring Festival (February 10-February 17), which is dominated by movies such as "Hot and Spicy", exceeded 8 billion yuan, a new record. It set a box office record for the Spring Festival in Chinese film history. During the period, the total number of moviegoers and the total number of screenings both exceeded the best results in history, setting a new high in the total number of moviegoers and total number of screenings during the Spring Festival in Chinese film history.

　　In addition, Bloomberg noted that during the Spring Festival holiday, China's consumer level continued to increase and the tourism industry was picking up, showing that "the overall consumption in the world's second largest economy is recovering for the better."

　　Bloomberg quoted a report on China's leading food delivery software as showing that during the holidays, the food delivery platform's average daily consumer spending increased by approximately 36% compared to the same period in 2023. Offline restaurant consumption also showed strong growth. In the five days before the holiday, the overall group order volume increased by 161% compared with 2023, and the order volume contributed by consumers in other places increased by 186% year-on-year.

“China will once again become the world’s largest tourism market”

　　During the Spring Festival holiday, Chinese tourists returned to the global tourism market, which also attracted great attention from media in various countries.

On the evening of February 16, Hongyadong in Chongqing was crowded with tourists. Photo by China News Service reporter He Penglai

　　The Wall Street Journal of the United States noted that Chinese people’s willingness to travel increased during the Spring Festival, and many indicators such as the number of domestic trips and total travel expenses hit record highs.

　　The report cited data released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China and pointed out that during the eight-day Spring Festival holiday, 474 million domestic tourism trips were made across the country, a year-on-year increase of 34.3%; domestic tourists spent a total of 632.687 billion yuan on travel, a year-on-year increase of 47.3%.

　　In order to attract more Chinese tourists, including "Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand", some countries have recently adopted "visa-free cards" for Chinese tourists, adopted limited-time or permanent visa-free policies, or announced the release of short-term visas, etc., setting the stage for China in 2024 The outbound travel market during the Spring Festival has gained momentum.

　　Reuters pointed out that thousands of Chinese tourists chose to travel abroad during the Spring Festival holiday. Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia hope to attract more Chinese tourists to come and spend money through their "unprecedented visa-free policy".

　　According to the analysis, Chinese tourists are still the main force contributing to Thailand’s tourism industry. The Thai tourism department said that it is expected that 177,000 Chinese tourists will travel to Thailand during the 2024 Spring Festival holiday, more than three times the number in 2023.

　　The report also stated that compared with the same period in 2019, the number of direct flights from Singapore to and from mainland China increased by nearly 5% in February 2024.

　　Singapore's "Lianhe Zaobao" quoted experts as saying, "As the economy continues to recover in 2024, China will once again become the world's largest tourism market." (End)