This year's Spring Festival, the tourism industry hit a new peak. According to the Data Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, during the 8-day Spring Festival holiday, 501 million domestic travelers nationwide, an increase of 5.9% year-on-year; the total domestic travel expenses were 677.02 billion yuan, an increase of 7.0% year-on-year, and many indicators such as the number of tourists and total travel expenses hit record highs.
In addition, this year's Spring Festival, travel, consumption and other aspects have increased significantly.
"Intangible Cultural Heritage" attractions are popular
As the first Spring Festival holiday after being included in the list of representative works of human intangible cultural heritage in the Spring Festival, many tourists went to the scenic spots for intangible cultural heritage this year. Meituan Travel data shows that the search volume of "intangible cultural heritage experience" rose by 387% in the first five days of the Spring Festival holiday, and the search volume of "intangible cultural heritage handicraft" rose by 790%. Among them, nearly 40% of the searchers are young people born in the 2000s, and the cultural enthusiasm has also driven tourists' enthusiasm for visiting shops. Compared with previous years, tourists born in the 2000s who traveled during the Spring Festival this year checked in 1.2 more small shops on Meituan, and in-depth travel has become a trend.
Related scenic spots have also felt the growth of tourists. Zigong Lantern Festival is a local traditional folk custom in Zigong City, Sichuan Province and one of the national intangible cultural heritages. Data shows that the search volume of "Zigong Lantern Festival" during the Spring Festival increased by 122% year-on-year. Wang Ziyao, head of the marketing department of Zigong Cultural Tourism Development Group, told Caixin that nearly 490,000 tourists visited the Zigong Lantern Festival during this year's Spring Festival, an increase of 17.8% from the same period last year's Spring Festival, setting a record high. Regarding the high of passenger flow, Wang Ziyao said that due to the influence of many factors, in addition to the driving force of intangible cultural heritage, the scenic spot has also made many changes this year: on the one hand, the scenic spot has undergone internal reconstruction, which has increased the capacity of the scenic spot; on the other hand, the scenic spot has extended its opening hours and launched nightclub tickets after 9 o'clock, which has extended the park from 11 o'clock to 12 o'clock in the evening, which has also increased a lot of passenger flow. In addition, Wang Ziyao said that publicity has played a significant role. "There are many spontaneous publicity online about Zigong Lantern Festival. Many tourists have high expectations for our lantern festival this year. They return from other places as soon as they are on holiday."
From the passenger flow, most of the tourists at Zigong Lantern Festival this year's Spring Festival are parent-child tours. At the same time, Sichuan, Chongqing and southern Sichuan are the main sources of tourists, and the proportion of tourists from other provinces such as Guangdong and Guizhou has increased compared with previous years.
The demand for catering and travel has increased significantly
In addition to travel, consumption growth in catering and travel during the Spring Festival is also very obvious.
During the Spring Festival holiday, tourists' catering consumption power is strong. According to data from Meituan and Dianping, the online transaction volume of catering group buying contributed by consumers from other places increased by more than 48% year-on-year in the five days before the holiday. Among them, the catering group buying contribution contributed by consumers from other places ranked among the top ten in the country.
In-depth tourism has driven the hot consumption of food in small towns. According to Meituan and Dianping data, Dali, Jinghong, Kunshan, Lingshui Li Autonomous County and Changshu have become the top 5 popular small cities for group buying and consumption during the Spring Festival.
The specialty restaurants on the list have become even more popular choices. Dianping data shows that during the Spring Festival holiday, the total number of views on the "must-eat list" list doubled month-on-month before the festival, and the average daily view volume of users in other places increased by nearly 50% year-on-year. Among the restaurants on the list, the number of orders contributed by users in other places increased by nearly 110% year-on-year, and the traffic of users in other places in the "must-eat list" in Fuzhou, Shantou and Quanzhou increased sharply.
In terms of business district consumption, during the Spring Festival in 2025, the total number of passengers in Meituan in the country increased by 17% year-on-year, and the consumption of dine-in and leisure and entertainment in the business district increased by 18.7% and 39.7% year-on-year respectively. Among them, Beijing Wangfujing/Dongdan, Guangzhou Changlong/Nancun, Chongqing Jiefangbei, Shanghai People's Square/Nanjing Road business districts ranked among the top in the country.
Didi Chuxing data shows that during the Spring Festival holiday, the number of taxi orders completed increased by 17% year-on-year, among which the demand for taxi in other places (extremely resided in places) increased by 60% compared with before the New Year. The number of taxi-taking orders used by inbound users in the country increased by 80% year-on-year. During the Spring Festival, more than 80% of the demand for taxi in Heilongjiang, Jilin, Tibet, Gansu and Hainan were contributed by users from other provinces. Among them, Hainan, Heilongjiang and Jilin taxi users have obvious characteristics of "north-south exchange" for the New Year, and are also deeply favored by Beijing, Tianjin and Heilongjiang. Heilongjiang has also attracted many users in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Fujian and other places.
In terms of service, during the holiday, Didi customer service recovered a total of 13.67 million yuan worth of property, including coordinating the driver to voluntarily send back more than 8,500 mobile phones and 36 cash red envelopes. Compared with last year's Spring Festival, the number of lost items for passengers decreased by 10%, while the number of drivers picked up and reported increased by 5% year-on-year.
