The 2024 Spring Festival is the first Spring Festival to be designated as a United Nations holiday for the Lunar New Year, with a strong New Year's flavor, rich food, and a ...... consumption boomThe Chinese have taken the Spring Festival to a new height, and the vigorous vitality of China's economy has been fully displayed, attracting more and more global attention. In the eyes of foreign media, what is the Chinese New Year like?
"The atmosphere of the Chinese New Year is stronger".
Dumplings, spring rolls, sugar oranges — The Associated Press noted the "special recipes" during the Chinese New Year and noted that in Chinese culture, people also eat longevity noodles, symbolizing prayer for longevity and the pursuit of a healthy, happy life.
During the Spring Festival holiday in 2024, the pedestrian street of Nanning 3rd Street and Two Alleys will carry out special activities to attract consumers. Photo courtesy of Guangxi Department of Commerce
Agence France-Presse and Reuters are concerned that the 2024 Spring Festival is the first normalized Spring Festival travel after the transition of China's new crown epidemic prevention and control. According to data from China's Ministry of Transport, in 2024, there will be about 9 billion people traveling, visiting relatives, and leisure in 40 days, which may hit a record high.
Reuters paints a picture of China entering a "high-speed state" on the eve of the annual Lunar New Year holiday, with travelers boarding trains and planes returning to their hometowns and families preparing traditional reunion dinners to greet them.
AFP wrote, "The air on the train is filled with the smell of instant noodles; By the window of the carriage, the passengers looked at the local scenery on the way home with anticipation. ”
During the Spring Festival travel period, on February 7 alone, Chinese railways sent 13.1 million passengers. Reuters reported.
Reuters also pointed out that during the Spring Festival, in order to prevent bad weather from affecting the return of millions of Chinese, China** "has been increasing railway capacity" to effectively alleviate traffic problems. "In the vast railway network, about 1,873 passenger trains were added on this day alone, a record high. ”
"Chinese consumers are active".
Chinese consumers are starting to get active. Bloomberg quoted Asian economics expert Frederic Neumann as saying.
Many foreign media have paid attention to the fact that the Chinese Spring Festival film market continues to recover, and the Spring Festival record in Chinese film history has been broken again.
Data map: The picture shows a movie theater in Ganzhou, Jiangxi, where people collect tickets at the self-service ticket machine. Photo by Liu Lixin.
Singapore's "Lianhe Zaobao" pointed out that as of 21 o'clock on February 17, China's 2024 Spring Festival stalls (February 10-February 17), which are mainly based on movies such as "Hot and Hot", have a total box office of more than 8 billion yuan, setting a new record for the Spring Festival box office in Chinese film history. During the period, the total number of moviegoers and the total number of screenings both broke through the best results in history, setting a new high in the total number of moviegoers and a new high in the total number of screenings during the Spring Festival in Chinese film history.
In addition, Bloomberg noted that during the Spring Festival holiday, the level of Chinese consumers continued to increase, and the tourism industry is picking up, showing that "the overall recovery of consumption in the world's second-largest economy is improving".
According to a report by Bloomberg, citing a leading food delivery app in China, the average daily consumer spending of the food delivery platform increased by about 36% during the holiday season compared to the same period in 2023. Offline restaurant consumption also showed strong growth, with group orders increasing by 161% overall compared to 2023 in the first five days of the holiday, and orders contributed by non-local consumers increased by 186% year-on-year.
"China will once again become the world's largest tourism market".
During the Spring Festival holiday, the return of Chinese tourists to the global tourism market has also aroused great concern from various countries.
On the evening of February 16, Chongqing Hongya Cave was full of tourists. Photo by China News Service reporter He Penglei.
Wall Street** noted that the willingness of Chinese people to travel during the Spring Festival was high, and many indicators such as the number of domestic trips and the total cost of travel reached a record high.
The report cited data released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China as pointing out that the 8-day Spring Festival holiday was 4 days of domestic tourism travel across the country7.4 billion person-times, a year-on-year increase of 343%；The total cost of domestic tourists is 63268.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 473%。
In order to attract more Chinese tourists, including "Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand", some countries have recently issued "visa-free cards" for Chinese tourists, adopted time-limited or permanent visa-free policies, or announced the release of short-term visas, etc., adding a "fire" to the Chinese New Year outbound tourism market in 2024.
Reuters pointed out that thousands of Chinese tourists chose to travel abroad during the Spring Festival holiday, and Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia hope to attract more Chinese tourists to spend money through "unprecedented visa-free policies".
According to the analysis, Chinese tourists are still the main contributor to Thailand's tourism industry. Thailand's tourism department said that the 2024 Spring Festival holiday is expected, there are 1770,000 Chinese tourists visited Thailand, more than three times as many as in 2023.
The report also said that the number of direct flights between Singapore and Chinese mainland increased by nearly 5% in February 2024 compared to the same period in 2019.
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." ”
*: China News Network.
Editor: Liu Hailin.