China’s May Labor Day Holiday Forecast 2021

Photo by Derek Lee on Unsplash

China’s Labor Day public holiday period runs from 1-5 May. This year’s holiday has been called “the hottest May Golden Week in history” by Chinese media because of the anticipated travel boom.

Here’s what we can expect:

– According to CCTV News, as of 27 April, flight bookings for the holiday are 23% ahead of 2019’s numbers, and hotel bookings are up 40% compared to 2019. (Source)

– According to analysis from CAPSE, the holiday will see 300 million trips, with domestic travel spending over 200 billion RMB (30.85 billion USD). (Source) China’s Ministry of Transport predicts 265 million trips. (Source)

– As of 23 April, Qunar reported that flight bookings were three times higher than in 2019, and that hotel bookings were four times higher. The average spend on hotels was double what it was in 2019. In terms of hotel bookings, Beijing was the most popular destination, closely followed by Changsha. (Source)

– Alipay reported that as of 25 April, searches for “hotel bookings” were eight times higher than usual, and searches for “attraction tickets” had increased by 15 times. Shanghai Disneyland and Hangzhou’s West Lake are forecasted to be the most popular destinations for the holiday period. (Source)

– Travel agency GZL International Travel Service reported an increase over 2019 for both intra- and interprovincial travel products. The two main trends they’ve identified are medium-to-high-end travel products, and “one-family-one-group” travel. The volume of “one-family-one-group” travel has tripled compared to 2019, and this kind of travel is particularly popular to relaxing leisure destinations, with mid-to-high-end tours more popular for sightseeing destinations including Guizhou Province, Chengdu, Xi’an, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Nanjing. (Source)

– According to Qyer’s “May Holiday Trend Forecast Report,” family travel is the major trend for the period, with families spending 37.8% more per trip than they did in 2019. Theme parks and animal attractions like Shanghai Disneyland and Chengdu’s panda park were the most popular family sightseeing destinations. Qyer’s data shows that Chongqing, Xi’an, and Sanya will be the top travel destination cities for the holiday. (Source)

– ForwardKeys’ data on flight bookings shows that this year’s holiday period “is set to exceed pre-pandemic levels substantially,” with mid-April bookings for the 1-5 May holiday period 5.8% ahead of 2019’s numbers, and bookings for the extended holiday period (29 April-9 May) up by 9.8%. The travel data analysts also observe that “Fewer people will be traveling as part of a group this spring. The share of group bookings is down from 17% in 2019 to 13% in 2021. By comparison, the proportion of people traveling solo or in pairs is up to 56%, compared to 52% in 2019.”(Source)

– The Trip.com Group (Ctrip) predicts a surge in incoming mainland visitors during the May holiday. By 9 May, they reported that May bookings for Macau were up 20% compared to 2019, and that searches for Macau were 140% higher than a month earlier. Macau is the only outbound destination that Chinese can travel to without facing a minimum 14-day quarantine on return. (Source)