"Longest Lunar New Year Holiday in History" Activates Cultural Tourism Spending; Celebrating Chinese New Year Becomes New Trend Among Foreign Tourists

Securities Times Reporter Tang Ying

The “longest Spring Festival holiday in history” combined with the “5 days off for 15 days leave” travel leave craze has injected strong momentum into the 2026 Spring Festival cultural and tourism market. Recently, multiple platforms released reports on Spring Festival travel consumption trends. Data shows that bookings for Spring Festival flights, hotels, and other cultural and tourism products continue to rise in both volume and price. Segmented off-peak travel is leading a new trend in travel, quality consumption upgrades are lighting up new experience scenarios, and inbound and outbound travel are growing simultaneously, broadening new boundaries for cultural and tourism.

Emergence of Segmented Off-Peak Travel

Niche Activities Accelerate Popularity

The China Association of Travel Services, in collaboration with Tuniu, released the “2026 Spring Festival Travel Consumption Trends Report,” which shows that this year’s Spring Festival holiday clearly features segmented travel, with nearly 35% of travelers choosing to travel off-peak before the holiday. The first travel peak begins after the Little New Year in the south (February 11), with the highest peaks on Valentine’s Day (February 14) and the first day of the holiday (February 15), marking a period of overlapping travel and returning home.

Many travelers choose to reunite with family first, experience traditional Spring Festival rituals like staying up on New Year’s Eve and paying New Year visits on the first day, then later in the holiday, embark on a family trip to celebrate the New Year together. Latest booking data from Tuniu indicates that February 18, the second day of the Lunar New Year, is expected to see the highest travel peak during this holiday.

Regarding origins, over 70% of travelers come from first- and second-tier cities, with high proportions from Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, Chengdu, Xiamen, Hefei, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Shenyang. Demand from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen is especially strong. Travelers from third-tier and lower cities are also rapidly increasing their travel demand, with the proportion of trips steadily growing.

As for destinations, niche, snow and ice, and cold avoidance are the three main keywords. Booking heat in lower-tier and county-level cities has significantly increased, with more travelers turning their attention to small towns and counties, seeking authentic, rural travel experiences. Fliggy’s “2026 Spring Festival Travel Trend Indicator” shows that cold avoidance and snow chasing are two core trends, with booking volumes in provinces like Hainan and Guangxi nearly doubling year-over-year, and Xinjiang and Qinghai exceeding double growth. Among snow and ice tourists, nearly 80% are from southern regions, and in cold-avoidance trips southward, over 50% are from the three northeastern provinces and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei.

Continuous Upgrading of Quality Consumption

Cultural and Tourism Integration Creates New Scenarios

As residents’ consumption concepts upgrade, Spring Festival cultural and tourism consumption is shifting from superficial sightseeing to in-depth experiences, with increasingly prominent features of quality and scene-based offerings. High-star hotels and cultural experience products are in hot demand, and the integration of culture and tourism continues to enrich new scenarios, becoming the core driver of Spring Festival cultural and tourism spending.

Data from Fliggy shows that bookings for high-star hotels during the holiday increased by nearly 70% year-over-year, with family-oriented theme park hotels favored by parent-child families, showing a 94% increase in bookings.

Travel quality is also reflected in the trend of group tours shrinking in size, with more travelers opting for customized, private tours, car rentals, dedicated guides, and flexible itineraries. Among Tuniu’s popular group tour products, pure sightseeing tours account for 71%.

Cultural and creative products are driving scene-based consumption upgrades. For example, the zodiac-themed lanterns from Shanghai Yuyuan Garden’s “Cloud Horse Chasing Dreams” have sold out quickly after launch, maintaining high popularity due to their festive and auspicious symbolism.

Bidirectional Growth in Inbound and Outbound Tourism

Foreigners Embrace Chinese New Year as a New Trend

As the Spring Festival approaches, it is no longer just a family reunion holiday for Chinese people but also a popular experience for international tourists. With deeper integration of culture and tourism and policies easing inbound travel, the 2026 Year of the Horse Spring Festival is seeing a surge of foreign visitors entering China. Visiting temples, appreciating intangible cultural heritage, and tasting traditional New Year flavors have become new fashion statements for international friends. Chinese New Year, with its unique cultural charm, is becoming a new landmark for global cultural and tourism consumption.

According to the National Immigration Administration, in 2025, the number of inbound and outbound travelers reached a record high of 697 million, with 82.035 million foreigners entering China. Visa-free entries accounted for 73.1%, a 49.5% increase year-over-year, laying a foundation for the recovery of cross-border tourism. By early 2026, celebrating the Spring Festival in China has become a new trend among foreign tourists. Data from Fliggy shows that in the last two weeks of January, foreign flight bookings for the holiday increased more than fourfold year-over-year. Popular entry cities include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Chengdu. From source countries, Thailand, South Korea, and Singapore are among the top, with the efficiency of international exchanges continuously improving. Chinese New Year is now an important scene for global cultural and tourism consumption.

Thanks to the “longest Spring Festival holiday in history,” outbound travel is also booming, characterized by steady short-term growth and explosive long-term demand. Southeast Asia remains the top choice, with new visa-free countries like Russia and Turkey seeing significant booking increases. Long-haul trips to Europe are favored by “holiday拼假” (long holiday combining leave days). Chinese travelers are extending their outbound flight radius, with over 60% of bookings in the “eight-hour flight circle” and beyond.

Overall, the 2026 Spring Festival cultural and tourism market is experiencing simultaneous growth in volume and quality driven by policy benefits and demand upgrades. From cultural empowerment to bidirectional travel, the industry is evolving toward higher quality, diversification, and internationalization. With ongoing release of consumption potential and continuous supply-side optimization, the cultural and tourism industry will remain a key driver of domestic demand and consumption upgrading.