China’s annual Spring Festival travel rush, a 40-day period commonly referred to as the world’s largest annual human migration, commenced yesterday ahead of an extended Lunar New Year holiday.
This year’s Lunar New Year, ushering in the Year of the Horse, falls on Feb. 17 and will be accompanied by an extra-long nine-day public holiday in China, running from Feb. 15 to 23.
It is hoped a longer holiday (last year’s break was eight days) might prompt Chinese consumers to boost consumption by spending more on travel and meals this festival period.
Photo: Reuters
Many Chinese consumers have been shaken by the nation’s uncertain economic outlook and would rather save than spend. Homeowners have seen their assets depreciate in a years-long property market slump, while weaker growth momentum since the COVID-19 pandemic has added to job insecurity.
That said, a state planning official last week said that China expects a record 9.5 billion passenger trips to be made during the period, surpassing the 9.02 billion trips made last year.
“Why do I feel it’s even more stressful to buy tickets this year compared with last year? For example, the flight back to my home is already sold out,” said 32-year-old Liu, a traveler flying out of Guangzhou airport yesterday. “If you don’t buy early, the price range fluctuates a lot, and can even double.”
Major travel platforms reported Lunar New Year bookings already surpassing last year’s levels. According to data from Flight Master, as of the middle of last month, bookings for domestic flights during the holiday exceeded 4.13 million, up about 21 percent year-on-year.
Popular outbound destinations are concentrated in Southeast Asia, with those flights accounting for nearly 50 percent of the total and Thailand among the leading destinations.
Following a geopolitical spat between China and Japan late last year, routes to Japan have dropped sharply, down more than 40 percent, according to Flight Master.
Domestically, culturally rich “intangible heritage towns,” such as such as Huangshan in Anhui Province, Jingdezhen in Jiangxi Province, Quanzhou in Fujian Province, Foshan in Guangdong Province and Zigong in Sichuan Province have emerged as popular destinations, online travel agency Qunar said.
MONEY GRAB: People were rushing to collect bills scattered on the ground after the plane transporting money crashed, which an official said hindered rescue efforts A cargo plane carrying money on Friday crashed near Bolivia’s capital, damaging about a dozen vehicles on highway, scattering bills on the ground and leaving at least 15 people dead and others injured, an official said. Bolivian Minister of Defense Marcelo Salinas said the Hercules C-130 plane was transporting newly printed Bolivian currency when it “landed and veered off the runway” at an airport in El Alto, a city adjacent to La Paz, before ending up in a nearby field. Firefighters managed to put out the flames that engulfed the aircraft. Fire chief Pavel Tovar said at least 15 people died, but
LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER: By showing Ju-ae’s ability to handle a weapon, the photos ‘suggest she is indeed receiving training as a successor,’ an academic said North Korea on Saturday released a rare image of leader Kim Jong-un’s teenage daughter firing a rifle at a shooting range, adding to speculation that she is being groomed as his successor. Kim’s daughter, Ju-ae, has long been seen as the next in line to rule the secretive, nuclear-armed state, and took part in a string of recent high-profile outings, including last week’s military parade marking the closing stages of North Korea’s key party congress. Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released a photo of Ju-ae shooting a rifle at an outdoor shooting range, peering through a rifle scope
South Korea would soon no longer be one of the few countries where Google Maps does not work properly, after its security-conscious government reversed a two-decade stance to approve the export of high-precision map data to overseas servers. The approval was made “on the condition that strict security requirements are met,” the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. Those conditions include blurring military and other sensitive security-related facilities, as well as restricting longitude and latitude coordinates for South Korean territory on products such as Google Maps and Google Earth, it said. The decision is expected to hurt Naver and Kakao
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday said he did not take his security for granted, after he was evacuated from his residence for several hours following a bomb threat sent to a Chinese dance group. Albanese was evacuated from his Canberra residence late on Tuesday following the threat, and returned a few hours later after nothing suspicious was found. The bomb scare was among several e-mails threatening Albanese sent to a representative of Shen Yun, a classical Chinese dance troupe banned in China that is due to perform in Australia this month, a spokesperson for the group said in a statement. The e-mail
RSS