China’s Golden Week holiday data shows slower-than-expected economic rebound
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About 9.3 million trips were made to major attractions in Shanghai, up 25 per cent from 2022, state-run China National Radio reported.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
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HONG KONG – Spending and travel over China’s Golden Week holiday
The nation recorded some 826 million domestic trips over the eight-day holiday period that started on Sept 29, bringing in 753.4 billion yuan (S$144 billion), official data showed.
While much higher than in 2022 – when the country was still largely contending with some of the world’s strictest pandemic controls – the figures fell short of government estimates for nearly 900 million trips generating 782.5 billion yuan.
“The National Day Golden Week tourism data suggests the services recovery has decelerated but continues,” economists at Goldman Sachs Group wrote in a research note. “We believe additional policy easing will be necessary for further recovery in consumption and services, especially given the continued property downturn and still-dampened confidence.”
Other key sets of data released during the break also signalled that while the broader economy is on the mend, it is far from roaring back. Some sectors have lost momentum in recent months, and ongoing turmoil within the property sector remains a big drag.
Traders had been pinning their hopes on a holiday consumption boost to provide a new catalyst for the sluggish stock market. The CSI 300 Index – a benchmark of onshore Chinese stocks – dropped as much as 1.3 per cent in its first trading session in over a week before paring more than half of the losses.
The People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, ran two front-page reports over the weekend saying the Golden Week figures showed the economy’s resilience.
“The prosperity and vigour during the holiday show the Chinese economy’s sustained growth, and its recovery trend,” the newspaper said on Sunday.
While the data was strong compared with 2022 – domestic trips surged 71 per cent, while revenue was up nearly 130 per cent – it was modest compared with pre-pandemic levels. Trips rose just 4.1 per cent from 2019, while spending inched up 1.5 per cent.
The 2019 Golden Week lasted seven days, as the Mid-Autumn Festival did not coincide with the National Day celebrations, which this year boosted the length of the holiday period by one day.
Border entries and exits, meanwhile, totalled about 11.8 million over the holiday period, just 85 per cent of the figure in the corresponding period in 2019, according to the National Immigration Administration.
Local movie box-office sales fell 39 per cent from 2019 levels to 2.7 billion yuan, according to data from ticketing platform Maoyan Entertainment.
Despite the overall sluggish growth from 2019 levels, people appeared to be more willing to spend in major Chinese cities. Tourism revenue in Beijing rose nearly 22 per cent from 2019, while the number of trips to the capital by non-residents surged around 13 per cent from that year.
The Shanghai authorities said the city’s tourism industry had “basically” returned to 2019 levels, state-run China National Radio reported. About 9.3 million trips were made to major attractions in Shanghai, up 25 per cent from 2022, the report said.
That report did not provide 2019 numbers, although local media cited the city’s tourism authorities as saying at the time that about 7.29 million trips to Shanghai attractions were made during the holiday in that year. BLOOMBERG
