China is seeing millions of travelers for the lunar new year

This year, more Chinese are returning to their hometowns for the Lunar New Year festivities since Covid Zero and pandemic limitations were lifted, allowing for unrestricted travel inside China.

In the first 13 days of the Lunar New Year travel period, more than 520 million journeys have been made inside the nation by land, sea, air, or train, which is significantly greater than the 351 million trips made at the same stage in 2022 and more than twice as many as in 2021. According to official data from the Ministry of Transport, it is still down 47% from the pre-pandemic level in 2019.

According to an analysis of the data, more people are choosing to drive home than take public transportation like trains. According to Ministry of Transport authorities, there were 320 million passenger automobiles on the country’s roadways from January 7 to January 18, an increase of 13% over the same time in 2022 and 12% over 2019.

According to Ernan Cui, China consumer analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, the delayed recovery in public transportation “shows that consumers are a bit wary about public transport with fears of reinfection.” “A few more months will be needed for full normalization.”

After the government unexpectedly lifted Covid restrictions in early December, many individuals are making their first holiday trips home in three years. Although the official vacation is from January 21 to January 27, many workers are taking a longer break than normal, which will affect manufacturing operations this month and probably into the first few days of January.

Movement inside big cities decreased as a result of individuals traveling more between the cities and their hometowns. According to statistics gathered by Bloomberg, the number of metro users had decreased by 10% to 25% on Thursday compared to a week earlier in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.

An index created by BloombergNEF using traffic data from Baidu Inc. revealed that traffic congestion levels in 15 major Chinese cities had decreased 16% by Thursday compared to the previous week.

Despite fluctuations and a tiny decline over the previous week, consumer confidence has generally increased from a low point in early December, according to a daily survey by the US company Morning Consult.

According to data from online ticketing platform Maoyan Entertainment, an early boom in moviegoers following the reopening is losing momentum, with countrywide daily average movie income decreasing to 43 million yuan ($6.3 million) by Thursday from 80 million yuan two weeks earlier. Due to the fact that the holiday season is often a busy time for moviegoing, that may pick up the following week.