Saturday marked the beginning of Lunar New Year 2024 celebrations, bringing in the year of the Dragon. The “Spring Festival holiday rush,” also known as Chunyun period, running from 26th January to 5th March is expected to make history, anticipating a record-breaking 9 billion domestic trips (up from 4.7 billion during the same period in 2023).
According to state news agency, Xinhua, domestic passenger traffic on Friday 9th was up 26.7 per cent from last year, with 184 million trips across the transport system made that day. The number of people taking flights reportedly increased 1.5 times, rising by 137.7 per cent to 1.8 million on the same day. Reuters reported that Shanghai’s two airports Pudong and Hongqiao expect passenger traffic to surge 57.6 per cent on year in the 40-day period while Beijing’s airports will see a more than 60 per cent jump.
Overseas travel during the period is also expected to rise with over 2,500 additional international flights to destinations including Southeast Asia, Japan, and South Korea.
Despite the large number of journeys being made, the Financial Times reported Alicia García-Herrero, Chief Asia-Pacific Economist, Natixis, saying that:
“You have some pent-up demand for travel in there so that might be good, but I don’t think the expenditure side will be as good.”
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