Ministry of Culture and Tourism: 135 million people traveled across the country during the 2024 New Year's Day holiday

During the New Year's Day holiday in 2024, the national cultural and tourism market was stable and orderly. According to calculations by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism Data Center, during the three-day New Year's Day holiday, 135 million domestic tourists traveled nationwide, a year-on-year increase of 155.3%, and a comparable increase of 9.4% over the same period in 2019; domestic tourism revenue reached 79.73 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 200.7%, and an increase of 5.6% over the same period in 2019.

During the New Year's Day, urban and rural residents have a strong desire to travel, and the atmosphere of cultural participation is strong. Music festivals, concerts, and group travel with family and friends tend to increase. The tourism market presents the overall characteristics of "ice and snow leisure, cultural participation, local travel, personalized consumption, fireworks, joy and peace".

The popularity of ice and snow tourism continues to rise. Heilongjiang launched a "100-day action" for winter ice and snow tourism, giving full play to the advantages of ice and snow resources, launching activities such as live performances on New Year's Eve, extending the operating hours of key scenic spots, subways, and buses, and the heartwarming details of tourism services have become a hot topic on the Internet. Liaoning launched more than 100 winter theme series activities of "Mountains and Seas Have Love, Heaven and Earth Are Peaceful", deeply integrating ice and snow hot springs, folk culture and sports activities. Beijing issued 30,000 ice and snow consumption coupons to help stimulate holiday consumption. The popularity of ice and snow leisure in East China, Central China, South China and other places has also risen. Urban ice and snow theme projects and theme parks have become important consumption scenes for residents' leisure and entertainment.

Tourism and leisure have shifted from traditional scenic spots to urban parks and theme parks. Driven by demands for parent-child entertainment, cultural experience, outdoor sports, etc., urban parks, theme parks, and commercial blocks have become the main scenes for cultural and tourism leisure during the New Year's Day holiday. On the first day of the holiday, 11 parks in Beijing, including the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven, and Beihai, and the China Garden Museum received a total of 218,000 visitors, an increase of 88.0% year-on-year. The immersive cultural and tourism block "Wuling City That Never Sleeps" created by Shiyan, Hubei, opened on the street, attracting more than 100,000 tourists on the first day. During the holiday, the overall popularity of the tourism market was concentrated in popular tourist cities and densely populated areas, and traditional natural scenic spots and tourist resorts far away from the source of tourists were not under much pressure from passenger flow.

The post-90s and post-00s generations have made holiday travel consumption more fashionable. The younger generation has entered both the supply and demand sides, jointly unlocking more and more new ways of playing and creating waves of new popularity. Travel motivations that pursue a sense of ritual, such as "climbing to greet the first ray of sunshine in the new year", have made "Sunshine on the Golden Mountain", "climbing", and "New Year's Eve Concert" hot search keywords.

The willingness of middle-aged and elderly groups, rural residents, and residents of small and medium-sized cities to travel has increased. Among the tourists, the participation of middle-aged and elderly groups, rural residents, and residents of small and medium-sized cities has increased, which has significantly affected the main trend of the holiday tourism market. According to the big data monitoring of the data center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, in the first two days of the holiday, the travel rate of residents in rural areas reached 4.2%, and the number of tourists contributed accounted for 20.0% of the number of domestic tourists in the country during the same period, setting a new record since the monitoring record of the New Year's Day holiday.