Chinese outbound travelers flocked to Japan over the May holiday. Photo by Jezael Megoza on Unsplash.
China’s May Labor Day holiday was a national holiday period from 1-5 May. We’ve rounded up and translated all the news and reports on Chinese outbound travel during this holiday.
Overall, outbound travel was up. Japan was particularly popular, edging out Thailand as the top destination on a few of the OTAs. Further afield, the US and Australia remained top long-haul destinations
National Immigration Administration
4,768,000 border crossings by mainland citizens, up 38% year on year.
Fliggy
Outbound flight and hotel bookings both doubled compared to last year. Spending on overseas car rentals was up by three times, while international cruise bookings increased by 15 times. 80% of outbound travel bookings were FIT. The top 10 destinations were Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, USA, Macau, and Indonesia.
Ctrip
Chinese travelers went to close to 200 countries and more than 3,000 cities. Traveler numbers to Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait were triple last year’s.
Qunar
An all-time high for international flight and hotel bookings for May holiday. Travelers visited a total of 1,035 cities. One extremely ambitious traveler from Kunming went to Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand all during the May holiday, visiting seven cities on his trip.
Tuniu
27% of May holiday trips were outbound trips, and outbound trips were up by 190% compared to last year. Short distance outbound trips accounted for 65%, with long-distance trips making up 35%.
Tuniu’s post-holiday report mentioned that there was explosive growth of travel to Japan because of the weak yen, with travelers going particularly for shopping, and favoring traveling as small groups of 2-8 people.
Long-distance travelers focused on in-depth one-country itineraries, as well as multi-country group tours such as Spain-Portugal and Serbia-Montenegro-Bosnia Herzegovina
Top 10 short-haul destinations: Japan, Thailand, Maldives, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, South Korea, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.
Top 10 long-haul destinations: New Zealand, Turkiye, Egypt, Greece, UAE, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, and Switzerland
Mafengwo
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