Chinese Domestic Tourism Surges During May Day Holiday
Skift Take
- Chinese domestic tourism rebounds strongly, reaching 119% of pre-pandemic levels during the May Day holiday, while international travel remains slow.
- Fitch Ratings highlights the encouraging recovery trajectory of the domestic tourism industry, driven by pent-up demand and limited outbound flight options.
- Despite the increase in domestic trips, spending remains nearly flat due to factors such as low-income travelers, visits to lower-tier cities, and short-distance trips.
The Fitch Ratings agency said the number of domestic tourism trips taken by Chinese consumers reached 119% of 2019 levels during the recent May Day holiday, aided by strong pent-up demand and the slower return of international flight capacity. Fitch said the domestic recovery trajectory was encouraging for the tourism industry but domestic tourism also benefits from the slow recovery on outbound flights which resulted in many people traveling around China during the week. Fitch is not expecting international air traffic to return to 80% of pre-pandemic levels until the fourth quarter of 2023. While total domestic trips were up 19% over 2019 levels, spending was nearly flat, at 100.9% of pre-Covid figures. Fitch believes this is due to a larger number of low-income travelers after years of travel restrictions, more visitors to lower-tier cities and rural areas and a large share of short-distance trips due to high hotel and airfare prices.
All that domestic travel did
