China to see robust tourism in May Day holiday

China is expected to embrace a tourism boom during the upcoming May Day holiday, with bookings for the holiday increasing significantly.

Tourists are pictured at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Mengla County, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Yunnan Province, Feb. 12, 2023. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

Data from FlightAI, a market insight platform of China's leading online travel agency Ctrip, showed that as of April 14, the number of searches for domestic flights for this year's May Day holiday on the platform had surged by 150 percent compared to 2019, and that of outbound flights increased nearly 40 percent compared with the same period in 2019.

On April 14, orders for train tickets on Chinese internet giant Meituan were twice the peak volume of this year's Spring Festival travel rush.

The demand for travel will be unleashed during the May Day holiday, which is expected to further bolster consumption recovery.

Bo Wenxi, chief economist at wealth management firm IPG China, said the accelerated recovery of China's tourism market is expected to promote the recovery of the service sector and consumer market in relevant regions.

Zhu Yue, a partner of China Insights Consultancy, said consumption in aspects including transportation, accommodations, catering, and shopping during travel contributes to the economic growth of tourist destinations, and a booming tourism market helps provide more job opportunities and increases people's income, thus driving the recovery of consumption.

Zhang Xinyuan, secretary-general of Co-Found, a think tank, said the recovery of the tourism market will directly drive the development of related industries and increase consumers' desire for consumption.

"As the travel demand rises during holidays, regions in China should work hard to improve transportation, accommodations and tourism services, as well as their image by taking advantage of the upcoming May Day holiday," said Pan Helin, co-director of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Center at Zhejiang University's International Business School.