Holidays at home for record number of Chinese as economic slowdown bites

investing.com:

By Casey Hall and Sophie Yu

SHANGHAI (Reuters) — A record number of Chinese are choosing to travel at home this Golden Week holiday, potentially boosting domestic consumption but disappointing travel agents who have been waiting for big-spending tourists to go back abroad since the pandemic ended.

China celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day from Friday to Oct. 6 in the longest public holiday this year.

The break traditionally sees an overseas exodus of middle-class Chinese as well as bumper domestic travel, with millions of people, mostly labourers and factory workers, returning to their home villages.

But as the economy struggles to recover after the pandemic, previous holidays this year have disappointed in terms of spending per person, as a weak job market and low incomes hurt consumer spending.

More Chinese are still reluctant to spend on nice-to-haves such as overseas holidays, but how much they do spend domestically during this holiday will be a key gauge of consumer appetite, a crucial component for the long-term growth potential of the world's second-largest economy.

«It's not wise to spend so much money,» said Beijing tech industry employee Joe Zhang, who will travel within China this holiday after high ticket prices scuppered his plans to go to Japan. «I'm disappointed. I haven't been abroad in three years,» the 27-year-old added.

The China Tourism Academy, part of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, estimates people will make more than 100 million trips a day during «the most popular Golden Week in history».

Trains are expected to be packed and the average number of daily flights is also a fifth higher than the 2019 holiday, according to flight app Umetrip.

The Spring Festival break earlier