Chinese cities to see tourism peak in New Year's Day holiday

China's major railway ticket booking platform 12306 showed that, as of 15:00 on Dec 17, tickets for a number of trains are sold out, including those departing from Beijing to Wuhan, Nanjing to Hefei, Hangzhou, Chengdu to Chongqing, and Xi'an, as train tickets officially went on sale on Dec 16, the first day available to book trains for the 2024 New Year's Day holiday, China Securities Journal reported on Tuesday.

Data from Chinese travel agency Ctrip showed on the first day of the New Year's Day holiday (Dec 30), tickets for short-distance travel in urban areas such as Beijing to Tianjin, Shanghai to Nanjing, Shenzhen, Guangdong province to Guangzhou, and Chongqing to Chengdu are in high demand. The travel demand is mainly to visit relatives.

According to Ctrip, travelers who are visiting relatives and ice-snow tourism will heat up destinations such as Harbin, Shenyang, Urumqi and Hulunbuir in Inner Mongolia autonomous region in Northeast and Northwest China, as well as Zhangjiakou in North China.

In terms of hotel booking, home stays and hotel rooms for New Year's Eve are popular choices for tourists. As of now, orders for 2024 New Year holiday home stays in popular cities on Tujia, a home stay online platform, increased nearly four times year-on-year. Data from travel portal Qunar also showed hotel rooms for Dec 31 - Jan 1 in Harbin, Nanjing, Wuhan, Shanghai and Beijing, especially those in luxury hotels, have higher bookings. Tickets for Universal Beijing Resort, Disneyland in Shanghai and Hong Kong, Chimelong Ocean Kingdom in Zhuhai Guangdong province and Harbin Ice and Snow World are rapidly booking out in advance.

In addition, Tongcheng Travel's data also showed that the popularity of domestic islands travel on its platform for the New Year's Day holiday increased by 72 percent year-on-year, and the popularity of Southeast Asian islands travel increased by three times year-on-year.