Travel becomes a new Spring Festival trend

More and more Chinese are choosing to travel, exploring new places and experiencing new thrills, instead of visiting relatives and friends during Spring Festival. Call it a new trend if you will.

Ministry of Culture and Tourism data show the total number of domestic tourists during the Spring Festival Golden Week holiday in 2019 reached 415 million, up 7.6 percent year-on-year. Based on this figure, several online tourist agencies have forecast that around 450 million people could spend Spring Festival traveling this year.

The rise in the number of tourists during Spring Festival can be mainly attributed to China's rapid economic growth and people's rising disposable income. China's per capita GDP increased from $856 in 2000 to more than $10,000 in 2019, allowing people to spend more on travel and sightseeing.