Vibrant consumer spending witnessed amid Spring Festival holiday

As Spring Festival - the most important traditional holiday for Chinese people - approaches, specialty purchases for the holiday are in high demand, the film market is off to a strong start, and travel volume during the annual Spring Festival travel rush is on track to reach a record. The Chinese New Year, which falls on January 29 this year, has ignited a new round of the consumption boom, further unleashing consumer spending potential amid fresh ways for people to celebrate the holiday.

The 29th Beijing New Year Goods Fair closed at the National Agricultural Exhibition Center in Beijing on Saturday. Featuring specialty products from across China and around the globe, the fair attracted crowds of consumers who came to stock up on festive essentials such as decorations, fresh fruits, seafood and pastry, the Global Times saw on Friday.

Beijing Longhuafeiyue Trading Co, organizer of the fair, told the Global Times on Saturday that the 23-day fair attracted more than 300 exhibitors from across the country and from other countries including New Zealand, Iran and Pakistan, with the coverage exceeding 15,000 square meters and average daily visitor flow hitting 20,000 to 30,000.

In addition to vibrant offline shopping ahead of the Spring Festival, online consumption has also boomed, as China launched a month-long online shopping event for festive goods, which kicked off from January 7.

Various Chinese regions and e-commerce platforms will host distinctive events to celebrate the Spring Festival, including local product promotions as well as exhibitions and performances themed on intangible cultural heritage, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com held the New Year's Goods Festival between December 24, 2024 and January 23, 2025.

During the promotion event, searches for specialty goods on the platform surged 40-fold, with many kinds of products from Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region including apples, raisins and almonds popular among consumers, according to data the platform sent to the Global Times on Saturday.

The data showed that the sales of specialty products from Northeast China's Liaoning Province and Northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region both grew rapidly, with sales volume rising 160 percent year-on-year, during the shopping spree.

Apart from goods consumption, leisure activities are also popular among Chinese consumers. Advance ticket bookings for movies set to be released during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday exceeded 500 million yuan ($69 million) as of Friday night, marking a strong start for the world's second-largest film market this year, CCTV reported on Saturday.

Chinese New Year's Eve dinners, family reunion feasts and party dinners with relatives and friends dominate the festival dining consumption. According to data Chinese hotpot chain Haidilao sent to the Global Times, its restaurants across the country had received around 40,000 bookings for Chinese New Year's Eve dinners by January 21.

The travel willingness of residents has increased during the holiday - the first Spring Festival since the inscription of the "Spring Festival, social practices of the Chinese people in celebration of traditional new year" on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in December 2024.

According to a report released by Chinese travel agency Tongcheng Travel Holdings on Tuesday, searches for scenic spots and travel products related to intangible cultural heritage have jumped 87 percent year-on-year since the beginning of January.

Amid the "China Travel" boom, a growing number of foreign tourists are anticipated to immerse themselves in the vibrant traditions of the Chinese New Year, with Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong Province and Xi'an in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province among popular inbound tourism destinations, according to Tongcheng.

"Vibrant consumption amid the upcoming Chinese New Year reflects China's economic strength," Zhang Yi, CEO of the iiMedia Research Institute, told the Global Times on Saturday.

The annual Central Economic Work Conference held in Beijing in December called for efforts to vigorously boost consumption, improve investment efficiency and expand domestic demand on all fronts.

The Chinese economy will demonstrate the resilience and adaptability in 2025 while generating new opportunities for the global community. One of the biggest highlights of China's economy this year is that consumption will become an increasingly important engine of economic growth, Tian Xuan, president of the National Institute of Financial Research of Tsinghua University, told the Global Times.