China witnessed a remarkable surge in tourism activities, with domestic travels reaching 474 million, a 34.3% increase from the previous year and a 19.0% rise compared to the same period in 2019, according to data from China Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

This period saw domestic tourists spending a staggering 632.687 billion yuan, marking a 47.3% year-on-year increase and a 7.7% growth from 2019 levels.

On average, each traveler expended approximately 1,335 yuan, underscoring the sector’s robust recovery and the growing enthusiasm for travel among the Chinese populace.

In addition to domestic travels, cross-border tourism also saw a significant uptick, with about 6.83 million inbound and outbound trips. The distribution between outbound and inbound travels was fairly balanced, with approximately 3.6 million outbound trips and 3.23 million inbound trips, highlighting China’s appeal as both a premier global travel destination and a significant source market for international tourism.

The cultural and entertainment sectors benefited from this travel boom, with 16,300 commercial performances happening nationwide, witnessing a 52.10% increase over the previous year.

These performances generated 778 million yuan in ticket sales, up 80.09% from the previous year, and attracted 6.5765 million attendees, marking a 77.71% increase year-over-year.

The 2024 Spring Festival film market set new records, with total box office revenues reaching 8.023 billion yuan. This achievement was supported by an unprecedented number of cinema-goers, 163 million, and screenings, 3.937 million, highlighting the entertainment industry’s significant role in China’s tourism and cultural landscape.

Reflecting on the entire year of 2023, domestic travel figures reached 48.91 billion trips, a 93.3% increase from the previous year.

Urban and rural residents alike contributed to this surge, with urban residents undertaking 37.58 billion trips (a 94.9% increase) and rural residents accounting for 11.33 billion trips (an 88.5% increase).

The total expenditure by domestic tourists soared to 4.91 trillion yuan, up 140.3%, indicating a robust demand for travel and leisure activities.

These statistics underscore the resilience and potential of China’s tourism industry, signalling the start of a new growth era in the post-pandemic world.

As travel restrictions ease and consumer confidence returns, the sector is poised for further expansion, promising significant economic benefits.

Domestic tourism revenue during this period reached 375.843 billion yuan (US$73.29 billion), up 30% year on year, and recovered to 73.1% in the same period of 2019.
During the CNY festival, 10,739 A-level tourist attractions were opened normally, accounting for 73.5% of the total number of A-level tourist attractions in China. About 110,000 mass cultural activities were held nationwide, with about 473 million participants.

The 243 national-level night culture and tourism consumption clusters have 52.122 million visitors, with an average of 30,600 passengers per night in each cluster.

The number of tourists received by Sichuan province ranked first, reaching 53.8759 million, and the tourism revenue reached 24.216 billion yuan, up 24.73% and 10.43%, respectively, year on year, recovering to 89.73% and 84.75% of the CNY 2019. Compared with the total tourism revenue, Yunnan contributed 38.435 billion yuan of tourism revenue in seven days.

According to Qunar data, each traveler traveled 400 kilometers more than last year, and the outbound air ticket was 6.7 times more than that in 2022.

As of January 26, during CNY in 2023, the number of air tickets booked in popular cities had exceeded that before the epidemic (the CNY in 2019).

In 2023, the average price paid for air tickets during CNY was 845 yuan, the same as before the epidemic.

According to Qunar CEO Chen Gang, there will be more opportunities in overseas markets in 2023. During CNY, outbound air tickets increased by 6.7 times over the same period in 2022. The top 5 destinations are Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the United States, and Indonesia. With the increase in flight supply, it is expected that the number of international air tickets and international hotel reservations will continue to grow.

Duty-free consumption in Hainan continued to be popular. According to Haikou Customs statistics, from January 21 to 27, Haikou Customs supervised 1.56 billion yuan in sales of duty-free shopping, an increase of 5.88% over the CNY holiday in 2022;

The number of duty-free shoppers was 157,000, an increase of 9.51% YoY; per capita consumption is 9,959 yuan.

According to Ctrip data, this year’s Spring Festival, cross-border ticket bookings increased more than four times year-on-year. Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Chiang Mai, Manila, and Bali have become the most popular international travel destinations for Chinese tourists.

Mao Ning, a spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, responded that during the Spring Festival this year, the number of people leaving the country exceeded 2.87 million, with an average of 410,000 per day, an increase of 120.5% over the same period last year. The overall order for outbound travel of Chinese tourists increased by 640% year on year, and the order for air tickets increased by more than four times.

Mobile payment trends in China outbound tourism

Singapore emerged the 3rd largest market in Southeast Asia for Chinese tourists spending over Chinese New Year, with an increase of 34% in average spending per Chinese tourist, according to findings from Alipay on overseas spending and mobile payment behavior of Chinese consumers across the 54 markets where Alipay is accepted during the 2019 Lunar New Year period (4-10 February).

60% of merchants that had adopted Alipay reported growth in revenue and foot traffic. It also highlights how the use of Alipay has become mainstream, as the older generations catch up with their younger peers in embracing digital payment.

The key findings reveal:

• Both transaction values and volumes experienced robust growth.
• Offline in-store transaction value surged 2.2 times year-on-year.
• Asian countries still dominate the top in terms of transaction volume with the exception of Canada, which climbed to the tenth spot due to increased adoption by local merchants and large retailers.
• Singapore remains in third place in Southeast Asia terms of transaction volume after Thailand and Malaysia and ranks in eighth place globally.
  • Transaction volume in Singapore doubled, and the average spending per Chinese tourist in Singapore increased by 34 percent
  • The highest number of transactions in Singapore occurred at airport terminals and in taxis.
  • Taxi transaction volume in Singapore this year was 1.92 times more than last year, and there was an increase of 5% in spending.
  • Transaction volume on Sentosa tripled, with over 70% acceptance rate on the island.

Alipay and Singapore’s Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) have deepened their strategic partnership to enhance the travel experience of Chinese visitors

In terms of product and outlet categories, Chinese tourists shopped more frequently in department stores and luxury shops in Europe, while those who traveled to Asian countries favored pharmaceutical and cosmetics shops and convenience stores.

In addition, preliminary findings released last week show:

Average consumption growth through Alipay by travelers from third-and-fourth-tier cities in China outpaced those travelers from the top-tier cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Middle-aged travelers, which are categorized into two groups – post-60s (those who were born between 1960 – 1969) and post-70s, were the main driving force in outbound tourism and overseas consumption.

China saw 150 million outbound person-trips in 2018, up 14.7%

CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala, or Chunwan, is a Chinese New Year special produced by China Central Television (CCTV) shown on the eve of Chinese New Year on its TV channels. CCTV now requires mobile app advertisers with daily active users of at least 100 million. Otherwise, the server would crash upon broadcasting the advertisement.

We all know now how huge and crazy China’s Double 11 shopping festival could be. Yet, after upgrading the servers’ capacity by 3 times based on Double 11 traffic last year, Taobao’s servers couldn’t avoid downtime being the advertiser of Spring Festival Gala 2018.

This year, Baidu gave away 1.2 billion yuan worth of hongbao on CCTV Spring Festival Gala, which crashed the app stores of Xiaomi and Huawei according to Netease News. In this 4.6 hours’ CCTV live broadcasting, Baidu App saw 20.8 billion user engagements with hongbao from 300 million daily active users. It sent 10 million 20.19-yuan hongbao, 1 million 88-yuan hongbao, 100 thousand Baidu AI speakers, etc.

CCTV has different advertising packages for this show. The 10-second midnight time broadcasting auction ad is one of them, which cost 6.8 million yuan in 2005 and 57.2 billion yuan after 6 years. Advertising on CCTV Spring Festival Gala show costs more year after year, going in the opposite direction of its audience ratings. The estimated total ad revenues in 2019 are 1.5 billion yuan (US$222 million).

The ratings maintained above 30% between 2001 and 2017 according to CSM (CVSC-SOFRES MEDIA). Many have got the feeling more people in China participate in Double 11 shopping festival compared with those watching this gala show. But, the opposite is true.

In the 1980s, the main sponsors of the Gala Show were watches, bicycles, and sewing machines. In the 1990s, it was almost the world of home appliances and Chinese liquor such as Confucian Family Mansion Jiajiu (Kongfu Yanjiu) and Gujing Gong. The former became a national brand after advertising on CCTV. And, Gujing Gong’s net profit grew to 1.26 billion yuan in 2018 from 830 million yuan in 2016 advertising on CCTV Spring Festival Gala for 3 consecutive years.

Before 2010, medical health, home appliances, and FMCG dominated the Spring Festival Gala advertising. Beginning in 2015, Internet companies have entered and taken turns. Tencent’s WeChat collaborated with CCTV in 2015 during Chinese Spring Festival Gala 2015 giving away 500 million yuan cash hongbao and 3 billion coupon hongbao. Its WeChat Pay users grew to over 300 million from less than 8 million.

How China’s short video app Kuaishou grew its DAU by 40M in 5 months

According to the China National Tourism Administration, during the Chinese New Year holiday, a total of 386 million tourists traveled domestically, an increase of 12.1% over the same period of last year. Domestic tourism revenue reached 47.5 billion yuan, an increase of 12.6% over last year’s holiday.

The top 10 domestic travel destinations are Guangdong, Sichuan, Hunan, Jiangsu, Henan, Anhui, Shandong, Guangxi, Hubei, Zhejiang.

During the holiday season, traditional scenic spots remain popular. New tourism products like Minsu, leisure districts, and characteristic town were highly favored by tourists. Self-driving tour, rural tour, urban tour and ice-snow travel saw rapid growth. The proportion of self-driving tour is close to 50%, becoming the main way for family travel.

For long-distance travel, as the temperature difference between the north and the south is obvious this year, many tourists bring their families to the north to enjoy the snow, to the south to escape the cold, pursuing a more distinctive experience of spending the New Year’s Day holiday.

The number of tourists visited ski park in the Northeast and North region increased by more than 10% over the same period of last year. As China tourists’ demand for high-quality tourism products, holiday tours has replaced sightseeing tours and become popular with tourists.

From short-distance to long-distance travel, from sightseeing to holiday tours, from busy shopping to enjoy the scenery, quality of outbound tourism is highly enhanced.

During the New Year’s Day holiday, China tourists have visited nearly 200 main domestic cities, 68 countries and regions in the world and 730 domestic and foreign cities.

Southeast Asia received the most Chinese tourists during this year’s New Year’s Day holiday. Remote destinations like Argentina and Mexico are also very favored by tourists. Family travel, bespoke holiday and group travel have boomed. Tourists put more emphasis on leisure holiday and deeper experiences. According to Ctrip.com’s booking data, group travel and free tour respectively account for 52% and 48% of the industry.

Chinese New Year is the most important festival for Chinese people. It marks the beginning of a new Lunar New Year. Before the new Year of Dog begins on February 16, Lightspeed Research launched an online survey in China’s mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan to ask panelists about their plan, attitude and behavior during this unique festival period. Read more…

Chinese New Year is the most important festival for Chinese people. It marks the beginning of a new Lunar New Year. Before the new Year of Dog begins on February 16, Lightspeed Research launched an online survey in China’s mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan to ask panelists about their plan, attitude and behavior during this unique festival period.

Let’s begin with the most exciting element of the Chinese New Year – red packets!

1. To give or not to give?

People might not expect this to be a question, but it indeed is. The three markets have very different traditions as to who should give red packets to whom. On the mainland, as soon as you get a job and begin to earn a salary, you stop to be eligible to receive cash red packets, and instead, you need to give out to younger generations.

Also, with the WeChat red packet gets increasingly popular, the action of giving/receiving red packets is no longer limited to the one-on-one face-to-face scenario. WeChat users can give red packets to friends individually thousands of miles away, or send one red packet to be shared by other friends in one WeChat group.

In Hong Kong, as long as you are not married, you don’t give out red packets and you can continue to request them from other relatives and friends.

In Taiwan, giving/receiving red packets is only among close family members. For example, only your parents and their brothers and sisters can give you red packets.

Against these cultural backgrounds, the mainlanders are more likely to give red packets, with 73% said “definitely” and 25% said “maybe”. Only 2% said, “no, I won’t”. In Hong Kong, 30% said they won’t. Taiwan is somewhere in the middle.

2. How many red packets will you give?

Different cultural traditions also decide different numbers of red packets people plan to give in the three markets. On the Chinese mainland, the threshold for being a “giver” is relatively low, but the value for the red packets couldn’t be too small otherwise the receiver will feel insulted (except for casual WeChat red packets). So the number of planned red packets is neither too many nor too few: among those who said they will “definitely” or “maybe” give red packets, 33% said they will give 10 or fewer red packets, another 34% will give between 11 and 20, another 19% will give 21 to 30. Only 4% will give more than 50.

The criteria for being a “red packet giver” is rather high in Taiwan – you need to be someone’s parent or immediate uncle/aunt – so 83% of those answered “definitely” or “maybe” plan to give 10 or fewer red packets. Another 14% will give 11 – 20. Only 2% will give more than that.

In Hong Kong, in the Chinese New Year period, you are expected to hand out red packets to any acquittance who say “Happy New Year” or “Kung Hei Fat Choy” (wish you make good money) to you. Business owners also need to give all employees red packets on the first working day of the Chinese New Year. So 48% of those answered “definitely” or “maybe” plan to hand out more than 40 red packets.

3. How much in the red packets?

To standardize the value of red packets across the three markets, we categorize all red packet size into seven brackets (no up limit for the seventh bracket). The same level of the bracket has similar money value across the three markets.

For example, the seven brackets for China’s mainland is

1) 10 yuan or below;

2) 11 – 50 yuan;

3) 51 – 100 yuan;

4) 101 – 300 yuan;

5) 301 – 600 yuan;

6) 601 – 1200 yuan;

7) 1201 yuan and above.

The majority of mainland red packets givers say their budgets fall in the middle: 84% of them range from second to the fifth bracket. Only 11% said average value for each red packet is 10 yuan or lower. On the other end of the spectrum, only 5% have a per red packet budget of 601 – 1200. No one is in the seventh bracket.

Hong Kong people, who are the most active givers, have much lower per red packet budget. Nearly 80% are in the second bracket (HK$16 – 80), 12% in the third bracket (HK$81 – 150). No one in the seventh bracket either.

Taiwanese give out the “most generous” red packets. One-third of them plan red packet budget in the fourth bracket (NT$601 – 1,500), another one third in the fifth bracket (NT$1,501 – 3,000). Even 8% are in the highest seventh bracket (NT$6,001 and above).

4. Red packet channels

When we asked our panelists through which channel they will give red packets, we can clearly see the overwhelming dominance of WeChat on the mainland. Face-to-face cash red packets are almost the only channel in Hong Kong (98%) and Taiwan (99%). On the mainland, 80% said they will use WeChat red packets, higher than 69% of face-to-face cash. Alipay accounted for 31%. On average, each mainland panelist will use 1.84 channels to give red packets.

5. How to buy Nian Huo?

Nian Huo means goods people usually buy for consumption or as gifts for relatives and friends during the Chinese New Year. Most common categories are food, beverage, snacks, confectionaries, etc.

Mainland panelists are not only more “digitalized” in their red packet channels, but also rely more on e-commerce when buying “Nian Huo”: 85% panelists mentioned online or e-commerce apps, only a little lower than “hypermarkets/supermarkets” (89%). In Hong Kong (88%, 22%) and Taiwan (80%, 26%), people still rely on traditional offline channels.

6. How to communicate during Chinese New Year?

Although mainland consumers are very digitalized, they are also keen to meet relatives and friends face to face. The most mentioned Chinese New Year communications method is still “face to face” (79%), followed by “calling mobile phone” (72%), “social media” ranked only third (63%). On average, each panelist mentioned 3.27 types of communications methods.

“Face to face” (81%) is also the most popular method among Hong Kong people during the New Year. “Calling mobile phone” and “social media” tied at 42%.

Taiwanese are the same as mainlanders, the preference is “face to face” (78%), “calling mobile phone” (59%) and “social media” (53%).

Both Hong Kong people and Taiwanese mentioned fewer than 3 types of communications methods.

7. Year of the Dog Wishes

New Year festival is the season of new year resolutions or wishes. Mainlanders are most likely to have new year wishes (77%), followed by Taiwan (74%) and Taiwan (66%).

We listed health, relationship, work, financial, educational, social and general, as well as others (open question) for people to pick up to three.

Mainlanders are most keen to have better health: their preference is health (67%), financial (52%) and work (49%). Hong Kong panelists are paying more attention to their economic status: the preference is work (62%), financial (61%) and health (49%). Taiwanese mentioned financial most frequently (72%), followed by work (67%) and health (52%).

WeChat users made 2.1 billion minutes of free calls and exchanged 46 billion red packets (hongbao)on WeChat during the past Chinese New Year 2017, five times more than the previous year according to WeChat.

Continue to read: What are consumers buying for Chinese New Year 2017?

Shopping of new year goods (a.k.a. “Nianhuo” in China) is a tradition of Chinese New Year (“CNY”) when retailers should get ready in advance. Data from Alibaba revealed some insights about this shopping season.

Tmall has sold 380 million new year goods with daily average transactions grown by 42% YoY. Taobao new year goods sales increased by 36% YoY; each user on average visited 5 stores. Rural users from over 28 thousand villages across China bought new year goods on Taobao.

Urban areas accounted for 83% of all sales during the new year goods sales 2017. 83% of orders were placed via mobile apps. Chinese millennials (post-80s and post-90s) are the main forces of Chinese New Year shoppers, accounting for close to 80% of total consumers’ spend.

Apparel and cosmetics are the popular categories among post-90s while electric appliances, household consumption, home supplies, and maternal supplies are the top spend categories among post-80s.

The Most Popular Online Shopping Cities

1. Shanghai
2. Beijing
3. Shenzhen
4. Guangzhou
5. Hangzhou
6. Suzhou
7. Chongqing
8. Chengdu
9. Dongguan
10. Tianjin

Purchase of air purifier during CNY has seen significant growth during the past two years.

China tourism market is to receive 343 million person-trips with an increase of 13.6% YoY during the coming Chinese New Year (27 Jan 2017 to 2 Feb 2017) according to China National Tourism Administration (“CNTA”).

China’s domestic travel market reached 4.44 billion person-trips in 2016, an increase of 11% YoY. China’s post-70s and post-80s drive the outbound tourism market during Chinese New Year in 2016 according to lvmama.com. Hainan and the northeastern regions are popular domestic travel destinations. Japan and South Korea are popular outbound destinations during CNY in 2016. Read more here »

CNTA conducted a “Chinese residents travel intentions” survey across 60 sample cities. It shows 82% intend to travel in the first quarter of 2017 and close to half choose to travel during the Chinese New Year holiday.

The northern residents prefer to go south to enjoy the warmth in cities like Sanya and Xiamen while the southern would like to go north to enjoy the beauty of snow season in Cities such as Harbin. Air quality and natural environment are the top factors affecting decisions on travel destinations.

Outbound tourism market in China will see 6 million person-trips during Chinese New Year holiday. From the travel booking information, the popular destinations include United States, UK, and Spain for long-haul trips; Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and Vietnam for short- and mid-haul destinations.

Last year, about 76% young users will pay for free and easy tours and 19% will go for individual trips during New Year’s Day in outbound countries. 25.56% young users will determine their destinations by considering costs and salaries. Survey results of lailaihui.com show that 69.72% users will spend less than 5,000 yuan (US$784.9) on outbound travel during New Year’s Day, and only 6.77% are willing to spend over 8,000 yuan (US$1,255.9). Read more on outbound tourism in 2016 here »

Related: China’s HNWI outbound tourism trends in 2016

Hongbao is an attractive tactic and often effective one for China internet companies to grow user base and engagement. And, it is one must-have activity among China internet users during Chinese New Year festival. Facing the coming Chinese New Year, Alipay is launching a special Hongbao campaign utilizing Augmented Reality to make it more interesting and engaging.

The concept of the campaign is simple. Users can “hide” a hongbao anywhere, like in the office or living room, and share the clue in images to their families and friends in social media such as Alipay friends circle, Weibo, WeChat and QQ. Other users can use the clue and get the hongbao by using Alipay to scan if they get it right.

The AR Hongbao is not only for users but also available for brands to engage users during the Chinese New Year festival. Coca-Cola has become the first brand to test run the AR Hongbao campaign with Alipay.

Alipay and Taobao launched password hongbao campaign before, in which users can get the hongbao if they can enter the right password. This AR hongbao campaign is similar with a twist using AR and LBS technologies.

The number of outbound Chinese tourists surged during the Chinese New Year holidays in 2016 and many countries and regions have been ready to meet the Chinese tourist shopping tide. Japan, Thailand, and Australia were popular outbound destinations.

Chinese outbound tourists to Japan was predicted to reach a record high of 6 million person-trips during CNY in 2016 according to Japan Tourism Organization. Japan was the second popular outbound destination of Chinese tourists during CNY. The most popular destination was Thailand.

The Japanese retail industry faced a large number of shopping Chinese during CNY in 2016. Famous Japan travel attractions were crowded with Chinese tourists. Hotel accommodation fees increased and China to Japan airplane tickets also increased.

Japan’s official statistics showed that Japan’s tourism revenue turned to profitability in 2015 for the first time in 53 years. However, the increase of Chinese tourists visiting Japan has slowed since the second half of 2015.

Australia was also popular among Chinese tourists. China had more than 10 million people applying for a visa to Australia in January 2016, which has set a new monthly record high. Although Chinese tourists were still enthusiastic in shopping, they were more rational towards goods.

Also read: China Outbound Travelers Shopping Overview 2015

China’s post-70s and post-80s drive the outbound tourism market during Chinese New Year in 2016 according to lvmama.com. Hainan and the northeastern regions are popular domestic travel destinations. Japan and South Korea are popular outbound destinations during CNY in 2016.

Many China’s travelers start their trips from as early as January 31th 2016 while the first day of Chinese New Year (year of Monkey) starts on 8 February 2016. The longest trip will be 19 days while many travelers will only spend two days on travel during Chinese New Year holiday. Female travelers account for 54%.

About half travelers will take free and easy trips and half will travel with groups during Chinese New Year holiday in 2016. 77% outbound travelers will travel with groups during the holiday while the ratio is only 49.6% according to Ctrip.

Hainan and Heilongjiang are the most popular domestic destinations during CNY holiday in 2016. The number of domestic person-trips to Hainan increases by 5 times compared to 2015. Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Guangdong, and Shandong are the top five travel origins during the holiday this year.

Chinese Spring Festival travel market has driven the neighboring travel market. Thailand, Hong Kong, the Philippines are the three most popular outbound destinations in 2016 based on data provided by Lvmama. The number of Chinese person-trips visiting Vietnam increases by nine times during CNY, the number visiting the Philippines increased by seven times, and those visiting Australia increased by four times.

Over 5 million Chinese person-trips visiting Japan and 27.7% Chinese tourists visited Japan for shopping in 2015 according to Japan National Tourism Organization. Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea have also become a good place for tourism and shopping during CNY in 2016.

China’s tourists brought in US$22 billion for Korea accounting for 1.6% of Korea’s GDP in terms of spend on accommodation, transport, shopping, and others. Outbound cruise travel is popular among neighboring travel market during CNY in 2016.

China’s post-70s and post-80s which account for 52% of outbound travelers drive the outbound travel market during Chinese New Year in 2016.

Mobile travel apps have become the major channel for travelers to book related products online during CNY. 70% of lvmama.com users buy travel products on the mobile app and half of Ctrip users purchase on the mobile app.

Also read: China Outbound Travelers Shopping Overview 2015

The number of Chinese outbound tourists reached 107 million person trips in 2014. More and more travelers tend to travel abroad during the holidays. The total number of China’s tourists is estimated to exceed 4.1 billion person trips in 2015.

64% users are inclined to go abroad during the New Year’s Day holiday, and 69% tend to travel abroad during the Chinese New Year with 5 percentage points higher.

The young Chinese generation is full of adventurous spirit and independent consciousness. Most of them prefer free and easy tours rather than group tours. About 76% young users will pay for free and easy tours and 19% will go for individual trips during New Year’s Day in outbound countries. As high as 81.3% young people choose the free and easy tours during Chinese New Year, and only 3.3% users are likely to travel with groups.

As drawing near of the end of 2015, 57.56% users are determined to plan their journeys depending on the number of holiday days. 16.89% users will travel where is mostly appreciated by the public.

25.56% young users will determine their destinations by considering costs and salaries. Survey results of lailaihui.com show that 69.72% users will spend less than 5,000 yuan (US$784.9) on outbound travel during New Year’s Day, and only 6.77% are willing to spend over 8,000 yuan (US$1,255.9).

Compared with the average budget during New Year’s Day, Chinese young people would rather pay more for the Chinese New Year holiday: about 51% users are glad to spend over 5,000 yuan (US$784.9) and 20% to spend over 8,000 yuan (US$1,255.9) during holidays.

Chinese post-80s and post-90s account for about 31.8% of the total population. Due to different consumption habits and lifestyles from their parents, more and more young people prefer to travel during weekends or holidays. In recent years, outbound travel has become popular and the youth have contributed a lot to this market. Korea, Japan, Thailand, Australia, the USA and some European countries have become popular outbound destinations in recent years.

About 65% of the young generation enjoy traveling with friends during New Year’s Day and 21% will travel with families. However, 33% users will travel in families during Chinese New Year. 35% and 56% users are willing to spend 5 to 7 days on travel during New Year’s Day and Chinese New Year respectively.

On the way to travel, the cruise has become a hot new trend on the outbound travel market. More users choose to travel to the surrounding countries by cruise and 2.4% users will travel by cruise during Chinese New Year.

In the first half of 2015, the first-tier cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, had most citizens travel abroad, and second cities such as Taiyuan, Kunming and Xiamen also saw a large number of outbound travelers.

The rapid growth of mobile internet consumption has led consumers transferring from the PC client to the mobile client. Since January 2015, the number of active users on mobile apps has surpassed that of the PC side, and the gap is gradually increasing. The young generation are used to booking travel products on mobile apps.

Also read: More Chinese Travelers Active on Mobile Than PC

Accommodation reservation volume increased 53% YoY in Q4 2014, and revenues increased 31% YoY, reaching RMB842 million (US$136 million) for Q4 2014.

Transportation ticketing volume increased 102% YoY in Q4 2014; and, revenues increased 34% YoY, reaching RMB774 million (US$125 million) for Q4 2014.

Ctrip gross margin was 69% for Q4 2014, compared to 73% in the same period in 2013, and 72% in the previous quarter.

Net Loss attributable to Ctrip’s shareholders was RMB224 million (US$36 million) for Q4 2014, compared to net income attributable to Ctrip’s shareholders of RMB261 million (US$43 million) in the same period in 2013.

Ctrip Performance Highlights for the Full Year 2014

• Net revenues were RMB7.3 billion (US$1.2 billion) in 2014, up 36% year-on-year.
• Accommodation reservation volume increased 63% year-on-year, and accommodation reservation revenues increased 45% year-on-year, reaching RMB3.2 billion (US$516 million) in 2014.
• Transportation ticketing volume increased 90% year-on-year, and transportation ticketing revenues increased 36% year-on-year, reaching RMB3.0 billion (US$475 million) in 2014.
• Total GMV of packaged tour business reached RMB13 billion in 2014.
• Corporate travel revenues were RMB373 million (US$60 million), representing a 40% increase from 2013. The corporate travel reservation revenues accounted for 5% of Ctrip’s total revenues in 2014 and 2013
• Gross margin was 71% in 2014, compared to 74% in 2013.
• Net income attributable to Ctrip’s shareholders was RMB243 million (US$39 million) in 2014, down 76% year-on-year

Ctrip’s cumulative mobile app downloads reached nearly 600 million by the end of 2014, growing over 70% from the previous quarter. Over 70% of transactions were made through mobile platforms during the Chinese New Year holiday.

For the first quarter of 2015, Ctrip expects to continue the net revenue growth year-on-year at a rate of approximately 40-50%.

Also read: Mobile Represented Almost Half of Qunar’s Revenue in Q4 2014

Traveling is popular among Chinese people nowadays. Especially, during Chinese New Year in 2015, Chinese travelers showed their strong consumption ability. It was estimated that China tourism market would accept 250 million trips with an increase of 11% from the same period of last year, worth RMB140 billion(US$22.68 billion) according to the latest research of China Tourism Academy and Ctrip in 2015.

According to the latest data, China’s domestic tourism is growing steadily while outbound tourism is developing with rapid growth. The favored destinations for domestic travel were Beijing, Sanya, Xiamen, Chengdu, Lijiang during Chinese New Year in 2015. The popular countries for China outbound travelers were Thailand, South Korea, Japan and the US.

Nearly 80% of the respondent hope to travel during Chinese New Year holiday in 2015 as shown in Ctrip Spring Festival Travel Intention Report, much higher than the previous year.

During Chinese New Year in 2015, travelers from 145 countries in the world booked air tickets, hotels, and other tourism products via Ctrip’s official website as well as its app to go for 445 travel destinations. Ctrip is one of the popular online traveling apps in China, see more about China online traveling apps: China’s Top 4 Online Travel Companies Compared

In terms of domestic tourism market in China, Beijing remained top among all domestic travel destinations. Shanghai accepted 3.802 million travelers with an increase of 4.8%, worth RMB3.749 billion(US$607.42 million); Jiangsu province accepted 2.98 million travelers from 12 scenic attractions with an increase of 16% worth RMB96.22 million（US$15.58 million) during Chinese New Year in 2015. Besides, tier-2 and tier-3 cities are now developing rapidly in traveling industry. Chongqing, Nanjing and Xi’an were hot cities for travelers to visit.

In terms of outbound tourism market, driven by good exchange rate and flexible travel visa, Chinese travelers were willing to travel overseas during Chinese New Year in 2015. Besides, outbound travelers accounted for over 60% of all. 300,000 Chinese travelers went to Thailand while 120,000 travelers went to South Korea.

Japan

Japan issued 250,000 travel Visas in January 2015 to attract Chinese travelers, which created the record of most visa from Japanese government. According to Japan’s official data, in 2014, 2.04 million Chinese travelers went to Japan and they consumed about RMB29.5 billion(US$4.77 billion).

South Korea

Estimated by Tourism Academy of South Korea, there would be 120,000 Chinese travelers going to South Korea during Chinese New Year in 2015.

South Korea received record number of Chinese visitors in 2014, easily breaking 2013’s record of 4.3 million Chinese visitors. The full year could even match the growth in arrivals seen during November 2014, when Chinese visitor numbers surged +67% from a year earlier. Global Blue estimates that by 2018, more than 10 million Chinese will visit South Korea every year

China will encourage more second and third tier cities to open direct flights to South Korea. Meanwhile, China will drive more cities to accept the landing visa and 72 hours transit visa, and simplify arrival departure procedures. Both countries will gradually implement a visa-free policy.

Chinese Travelers’ Strong Consumption

It is important to remember that for the seventh consecutive year Chinese globe shoppers are still the biggest-spending nationality, spending on average 736 Euros per transaction.

China has a population of more than 1.3 billion, including about 75 million consumers active in the global luxury goods market. During Chinese New Year in 2015, Chinese travelers would continuously show their strong consumption capability.

Also read: China Inbound Tourism Industry Overview

One week’s Chinese New Year 2015 holiday just ended on 24 February. During this period, over 60% purchased on mobile device. And, the most popular product category is mothercare according to Tmall.

Major home appliance sales value grew by over 265% during this period; Tmall Superstore jumped 42 times. Shanghai, Hangzhou and Beijing were the top 3 online shopping cities during Chinese New Year 2015.

Also read: 80% Willing to Travel During Chinese New Year Holidays 2015

Total hongbao volume on Chinese New Year eve exceeded one billion on WeChat compared with 240 million on Alipay. The volume during the same period on Weiob was 101 million who started Hongbao campaign on 2 Feb 2015.

Hongbao, or red envelope, is the Chinese people’s traditions and customs. Every Chinese New Year’s (“CNY”) Eve, a junior will be given some money, packed in a red envelope. In ancient times, the money is used to scare a monster. Gradually, envelopes also became the best carrier between relatives and friends for blessings and good luck in special occasions such as wedding, birthdays, and new-born’s 100th day.

In 2014, WeChat hongbao attracted 8 million users from CNY eve and the eighth day giving away 40 million virtual red envelopes. QQ also gave away virtual hongbao roth 3 billion yuan. 154 million users participated in 637 million hongbao competition on CNY eve.

WeChat collaborated with CCTV this year during Chinese New Year 2015 giving away 500 million yuan cash hongbao and 3 billion coupon hongbao. CCTV programs, especially Spring Festival Gala invited viewers to use “Shake” feature on WeChat to get hongbao including cash and coupons.

Also read: 80% Willing to Travel During Chinese New Year Holidays 2015

Following iQIYI announced an exclusive worldwide broadcast in 2015 CCTV Spring Festival Gala for Year of the Goat, Gong Yu, iQIYI founder and CEO, and Wang Gaofei, Weibo CEO, announced deep collaboration on this event on Weibo. Weibo users can comment and win Hongbao while watching Spring Festival Gala.

This year, China internet users can watch the live broadcasting of Spring Festival Gala and comment and interact with other Weibo users without switching the screens. Weibo will also give away 400 red envelopes to active users, each of which contains 4,999 yuan cash.

Their collaboration covers mobile. iQiyi has 500 million active users according to Gong Yu. Its accumulated users on mobile client has reached 860 million, contributing 63% of its total traffic. In contrast, the percentage of users who login Weibo on mobile exceeded 78%.

While during the first 7 months in 2014, iQiyi/PPS remained the leader by total number of reached users on mobile, followed by Youku Tudou, and Tencent video.

Read more: Weibo and Alipay’s Hongbao Campaign Gone Viral

According to Hurun Chinese Luxury Consumer Survey 2015, Chinese luxury travelers on average go on business trip for eight days a month and the super rich are away for 11 days a month. And they also take 8 and 12 days of holiday respectively, one more than last year.

Chinese New Year is preferred time to travel, followed by October Golden Week and the summer holidays. The Peninsula Hotel replaced the Shangri-La as China’s preferred hotel brand; the Mandarin Oriental improved the fastest, rising to second place. Aman Resorts is named Best Luxury Boutique Hotel Brand in Hurun Best of the Best Awards 2015.

Australia is the top luxury travel destination, followed by France. Maldives shoots into third place. UK back into the Top 10.

↑ ranked higher than last year ↓ ranked lower than last year   * New entry this year

The same survey also unveiled that in China gift-giving market, travel gift vouchers continued to show a strong rise for the third year. Travel retail continues to change the dynamics of luxury in China, with 7 out of 10 luxury goods bought by Chinese now being bought overseas.

Read more: 74% Chinese Rural Residents Willing to Travel in 2014

Nearly 80% of the respondent hope to travel during Chinese New Year holiday in 2015 as shown in Ctrip Spring Festival Travel Intention Report, much higher than the previous year.

Due to the over-crowdedness in China, over 50% hope to travel overseas. As for the choice of booking channel, more than 80% prefer to comparatively select travel products on travel websites, and about 40% turn to mobile phone for reservation, which indicates “mobile” manner of online booking on Spring Festival holidays.

Thanks to several major favorable factors, including simplified requirements for outbound tourism, easier availability of domestic high-speed train and self-driving, Internet technology innovation of travel and severe price competition, Chinese willingness to travel is highly likely to further increase in 2015.

Golden Week of 2015 Spring Festival holidays will begin in about two weeks starting on Chinese New Year Eve 18 February 2015. Ctrip survey has also shown that 80% of Internet users would like to travel, among whom 17% have already made travel plans, 65% remain undecided, and 18% plan not to travel on the holiday.

Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, is the most significant annual festival for Chinese, and thus nearly 90% of those preferring travel tend to travel together with their family, and only 5% prefer traveling alone.

Since family reunion and friend parties are also indispensable, 36% of those preferring travel tend to begin their travel from the 3rd or 4th day, 23% like to do it before the Spring Festival, 20% would like to do it on the 1st or 2nd day. In terms of the days of travel, most will spend 3-6 days to relax and travel, 25% will spend more than 6 days.

In terms of travel destination, about 40% tend to travel abroad, 37% prefer domestic tourism, and the remaining 23% have not made final decision. More than 50% dislike domestic travel due to the usual crowdedness at scenic spots on holidays. The survey has also displayed that males prefer domestic tourism, while females are more inclined to overseas travel.

As for the domestic destination for Spring Festival holidays, Sanya, Yunnan, Xiamen, Northeast China, Jiuzhaigou, Guilin, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Zhangjiajie and Shanghai are Chinese netizens’ top ten favorites.

As for the overseas destination for Spring Festival holidays, Thailand, Bali Island, Maldives, Europe, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Macao, Singapore, New Zealand and Republic of Korea are the netizens’ top ten favorites.

Of all factors, the respondents still mainly consider price, travel line and service. 71% pay most attention to price, 68% mostly concern travel line and 49% take service quality as priority. In addition, several other factors are also concerned, such as travel safety and weather.

In the aspect of consumption level, the Chinese are richer and richer, and their willingness of consumption on Spring Festival holidays is higher than before. 30% believe that 3001-5000 yuan is reasonable per capita consumption, and 1/3 will spend more than 5000 yuan per person on tourism.

The tourists’ price sensitiveness declines with the rise of age, mainly because those above 40 years old enjoy stronger consumption capacity and pay more attention to the value of Spring Festival travel, and thus they are willing to invest more into travel.

During the Chinese New Year, the websites where people spent the longest time are search engine, directories, e-commerce and others according to Nielsen.

Read more: Weibo and Alipay’s Hongbao Campaign Gone Viral

“2015 Let Hongbao Fly” campaign, jointly started by Weibo and Alipay, indicates the start of virtual Hongbao (or Red Envelope) war for Chinese New Year 2015.

In Chinese and other Asian culture, a red envelope or hongbao is a monetary gift which is given during holidays or special occasions such as weddings, the birth of a baby or graduation. In China, sometimes giving away hongbao becomes an economic burden. Anyway, who wouldn’t like to receive some?

Weibo has launched virtual cash hongbao for the first time this year. The netizens can not only directly win cash in Weibo Hongbao, but also contribute cash to the hongbao of their idols, and enjoy the chance to jointly give away hongbao.

The new way of giving away Hongbao has fully stimulated the netizens’ participation enthusiasm, demonstrated by the fact that 5,490,000 virtual red envelopes are all given away in only 8 hours. As expected, the virtual hongbao worth over one billion yuan will be released during the campaign.

Chinese Weibo users who win in Weibo Hongbao can withdraw cash and trasnfer to the associated Alipay account. It is virtual hongbao, yet it’s real money. As of 16:00, February 2, over 5,490,000 virtual red envelopes have been issued via Weibo.

The netizens can also top up their idols’ virtual red envelope with money on Weibo and enjoy the possibility to be known by millions of other fans who later manage to win those hongbao which are shown “jointly issued by … and …”. This greatly stimulates the fans’ enthusiasm. Within less than 10 hours after the start of the activity, more than 6600 fans have contributed to the hongbao of Wang Junkai who is a member of tfboys. Sina Weibo also set up a the most wealthy hongbao list.

This year’s hongbao campaign expanded cooperation with traditional enterprise integrating online and offline sources. Users can win red envelope via code scanning on China high-speed trains, airports and shopping malls, in addition to Weibo. During Chinese New Year Gala, Weibo will give away about hundreds of millions worth of hongbao jointly with Alipay, MICOE (a solar technology company) and other enterprises.

To many companies, it’s a good way for fans engagement and more importantly grow fans at acceptable cost. It also provides a good marketing platform for companies on Spring Festival. The companies can contribute to the celebrities’ hongbao with money and give away jointly with celebrities, which is good to enhance their brand awareness.

Traditional companies can integrate online and offline marketing resources through the activity of “Let Hongbao Fly”. At present, MICOE has started “MICOE’s Red Envelope Present” campaign train sponsorship painted with their brands and 2D code. Users can scan and win red envelope with each one at a maximum value of 5,000 yuan and a total worth of over 250 million yuan.

Weibo’s “Let Hongbao Fly” campaign 2015, launched on 2 Feb 2015, has generated 4.39 billion views and nearly 55 million discussions in less than three days.

Also read: WeChat Testing Ads in Moments News Feed

Chinese Spring Festival Gala usually had the highest TV ratings in the world, according to CCTV, its TV ratings in 2014 reached 30.94%. While in the US, Super Bowl also had pretty high TV ratings therefore Chinese called it “American Spring Festival Gala”. 2014 Super Bowl hit a new record of 111.5 million viewers.

Big events like Spring Festival Gala and Super Bowl are the best marketing opportunities for advertisers. It was estimated that Spring Festival Gala advertising expense was around 600 million yuan (USD 97.94 million). Advertising price hit 50 million yuan (USD 8.16 million) per 10 seconds at midnight. Similarly, Fox sold out all the commercial breaks by the end of 2013 with averagely USD 4 million per 30 seconds. Advertising alone brought Fox and NFL over USD 300 million.

Apparently, only large enterprises could afford advertising expenses on big events like Spring Festival Gala and Super Bowl. With the emerging of social media, an increasing number of small enterprises turned to Real Time Marketing to promote their brands during big events. Using a little tricks and tactics, these social media marketing could bring unexpected outcomes with low costs.

Live Broadcast Brings Chances To Social Media

Unlike online video websites, social media seems to get along well with TV programs. Users have been used to discussing on social media while watching TV programs. TV brings a large quantity of topics and information, and social media in returns improve TV ratings by discussing and hot event hash tags. Data analysis of social media provides valuable user feedback to TV program makers.

Spring Festival Gala and Super Bowl are both live broadcasting that last for 4 hours, which lead to numerous user generated content on Sina Weibo and Twitter. In 2014 Chinese New Year’s Eve, there were 34.47 million Weibo users participated in Spring Festival Gala discussion. Interactions (posts, reposts, comments and likes) reached 68.95 million, and in the first minute of Chinese New Year, 863,408 Weibo posts were sent. Weibo posts that mentioned Spring Festival hit 45.41 million in 2014, 1.4 times more than last year. South Korean star Lee Minho’s new year Weibo post had the highest reposts with 430,000 times.

According to Twitter’s official data, there were 24.9 million tweets (not including retweets and comments). The climax was when Seattle Seahawks’ third quarter touchdown came, tweets peaked at 380,000 per minute. Over 57,000 retweets for Hillary Clinton’s joke, which was the most retweeted post during 2014 Super Bowl.

The total American Twitter users reached 150 million, and Sina Weibo had over 500 million registered users. In conclusion, Sina Weibo and Twitter were extremely active during big events. According to Facebook official data about Super Bowl, there were 50 million people involved in Super Bowl and generated 185 million interactions (including posts, comments and likes) in 24 hours. New York Times commented that Facebook exaggerated its data a little bit while Twitter did not include retweets, comments and likes therefore being a little too modest about its influence.

During big events like Spring Festival and Super Bowl, users would also interact on Twitter, Facebook, Sina Weibo, Wechat, renren, and Qzone. However, from the perspective of marketing, only those platforms which generate public discussion and spread around could bring value to Real Time Marketing. Super Bowl event proved that Twitter was more valuable to advertisers than Facebook.

Which Would Advertisers Choose?

Although Wechat and QQ also created a large number of posts during Spring Festival Gala, Wechat even promoted by sending out red envelops, these inside discussions did not have marketing values.

Mass Relevance analyzed top 100 brands in 2013 (selected by InterBrand) Real Time Marketing during Super Bowl on social media for consecutive two years, it found out that 8 out of 100 brands did social marketing on Twitter in 2013 and the number increased to 29 in 2014. 6 out of the 8 brands did social marketing on Twitter last year stayed for 2014. Marketing experts’ reports about Super Bowl social marketing mostly based on Twitter.

The 29 brands included advertisers such as Honda, Kia Motors, Volkswagen which already paid a huge amount money on TV commercial breaks, they did not want to miss Twitter Real Time Marketing. Their TV ads would usually display texts in the end to encourage viewers to interact on Twitter and tweeted with hash tag #sb48.

Except for big brands, small enterprises began Real Time Marketing on Twitter since last year’s Super Bowl. Big events marketing become a necessity of marketing tactic and strategy in the whole industry. According to Mass Relevance, brands Real Time Marketing tweets during Super Bowl tripled in 2014.

In comparison, Facebook and Instagram were deserted by advertisers. Brands marketing on Facebook and Instagram dropped in 2014, even less than that of 2013. Apparently, advertisers did not regard Facebook suitable for event marketing. Facebook also felt awkward though it had been competing with Twitter for Real Time Marketing by launching trending. Instagram did a good job by launching short video service and advertising. Despite having more users than Twitter, Facebook lost its game in event marketing.

When it comes to Spring Festival Gala, Sina Weibo took event marketing more serious than Twitter. Users could join Spring Festival Gala discussion by scanning QR code on TV, interact with stars and performers on Weibo. Besides, Sina Weibo began planning “Red Envelop” long before the start of Gala. It integrated the promotion activity into the whole Spring Festival Gala discussions, and encouraged users to create more content via lucky draw as well as brands to do marketing on the platform. Sina Weibo sent out 100 million yuan (USD 16.32 million) worth “Red Envelop” in 4 hours of live broadcasting.

Even if Spring Festival Gala is only broadcast in Chinese New Year’s Eve, it soon gathered a lot of users to participate in “Red Envelop” activities. Enterprise Weibo account Evergrande Spring’s followers increased by 300%. One week after Spring Festival Gala, Sina Weibo gave out 450 million yuan (USD 73.46 million) worth “Red Envelop” in total.

“Red Envelop” promotion not only increased relative Weibo posts, but helped enterprises to do marketing and expanded Sina Weibo Real Time Marketing influence among Chinese brands. In the future, Sina Weibo will continue to cooperate with CCTV when Word Cup, Olympic Games and other big events happen, to deliver the value of event marketing.

According to a data released by Nielsen recently, from January 28 to February 24 2013, during the Chinese New Year, the sites where people spent the longest time are search engine, directories, e-commerce and others. E-commerce, other websites and e-mail experienced the most obvious changes during CNY period. The change of the visit time on e-commerce sites from Jan 28 to the Spring Festival reached 46.50%, and after the Chinese New Year it got an sharp increase of 71.03%.