The fireworks have faded, the reunions are over, and the last dumplings have been eaten.
And now come the numbers.
The numbers that tell us what kind of holiday this year's Spring Festival really was.
Tourism receipts, box office halls, and the data behind how China rang in its year of the horse.
We're live from our studios in Beijing.
This is Roundtable.
I'm Steve.
Thanks for being with us today.
And for the show, I'm with Fei-Fei and Yuxia.
First up.
Spring Festival has come and gone.
It went by so quickly this time.
It seemed like it came upon us quickly and then it disappeared just as fast.
The red envelopes, those are emptied now.
Maybe some of you have spent that money already.
The travel bags are unpacked and millions and millions of people have settled back into their routines.
But behind the personal memories of family and feasting lies a different story, one written in spreadsheets and statistics.
This year's holiday was a long one, but it wasn't just about tradition.
It was a huge economic event that reshaped how we understand Chinese consumer behavior here in the year 2026 from the box office numbers to people's travel patterns, from the different types of spending to the unexpected rise of ai powered holiday planning.
The data is finally here and we're going to unpack it all.
Feifei and yushan, good afternoon to you.
But before we do that, welcome back.
It's been a little while, so how was your holiday?
It doesn't feel like nine days.
It doesn't.
It feels like a long one-day break, but somehow we ended up having nine days, so I heard.
Well, how was everything for you during your time away?
Oh, this is what I want to know first.
Did you watch the Spring Festival Gala?
Of course.
Partially.
Yeah, it was played at the background, for sure, but we only get to watch the really nice part, like the dancing and also the singing.
Speaking of the singing Fei Fei, you got the chance to interview one of the singers that show up on the gala.
John Legend.
I got a chance to sit down with him before the gala actually.
He was a really professional singer.
I think he sang two songs at the gala, All of Me and Beauty and the Beast.
Yeah, I saw the Beauty and the Beast performance after the fact.
I didn't realize that he was going to be a part of the gala festival.
Me neither.
But I caught a clip of it later.
They were re-showing it on the news, you know, the next day and things like that.
And that was quite a grand performance, wasn't it?
Where was that?
Was that in Beijing, I guess? and it was really a surprise to a lot of people.
I tried to hold it back because it's supposed to be a surprise to the audience.
You knew about this.
I knew about this, but I just kept my quiet for a little bit until Wait, you didn't even tell us.
Yeah yeah, that's that's the plan.
We only knew after we saw the video came out and the two of them were vibing and chatting.
I was like, wait a minute, what happened here?
What did that happen?
Uh, that's cool.
Um, there was another um group that performed as well.
It wasn't was it one direction?
No, it was westlife.
Pardon my mistake.
Yeah, and i was asking about um them with.
We were chatting before the show.
You shan, and you said westlife is a really popular group here in.
Yeah, especially for people of my age.
We grew up listening to west live and backstreet boys and we learn english based on their lyrics.
That's like they're like our distance english teacher.
Yeah yeah, just because of they release good songs.
Yeah yeah, and they were performing uh in, i believe, one of the one of the side events of the venues.
The uh robots, of course, were another standout from the gala.
They i mean i this year compared to last year.
Last year was cool.
This year was another level.
They were doing Wushu.
And also they're balancing themselves.
You can see that in interacting with the kids.
I was really impressed by the fact that the kids and the humanoid robots they were so well integrated together in that one show.
And I heard that some of the model types were sold out soon after the Gala performance because people just see wow, that's where we're getting with humanoid robots now in China.
Yeah, so that's one of the first.
I think these robots come into practice in real-life performances dancing, and also in festivals, tempo fairs.
During the holiday, i watched a ton of olympic hockey, a ton of olympic curling.
I even got to witness a few matches for the men's and women's chinese teams, which was great.
It was the first time i had ever seen them play before.
Uh canada, i was talking i don't know if i mentioned it on air or off air, but i said we were talking about ice hockey and i said you know canada gold, That's like for us, our national treasure.
And we made it to the finals.
But the United States, our arch rival when it comes to ice hockey, they won it this time around.
Yeah, the boy did their best.
We've seen how like over 42, was it 43 goals they were trying to shoot and it was such a game yeah, that we were watching and it's really exciting.
There were some exciting stories from chinese athletes too.
There was a couple.
What sport were they?
What sport was that?
Was it snowboarding?
Then they were at the freestyle skiing aerials and both of them are on that um event.
One of them, of course, is on the men's team and the other one, Xu Mengtao, is on the women's team.
And I think they are the first married couple that won gold medals at the same Olympic Games in the Olympic history.
Wow.
Same sport, too.
Same sport, yes.
Yes, that's very impressive.
Oh, they need to have like 100 children, and they'll just be amazing athletes forever.
And then another side of the story goes to a video I saw yesterday featuring Eileen Gu, the very popular Chinese female skiing athlete who, well sadly, was grieving during one of the press conference after the game, Right after she won the Olympic gold.
For this year she won two silver and one gold.
But after she winning the gold she was grieving during the press conference that her grandma passed away.
So there was a lot of emotion going in one great speech she gave.
And it was really emotional and touching for all of us to hear and learn as well.
So two big events happening at the same time Spring Festival here and of course in Italy, the Olympics were happening too.
All right, so let's get to it.
Let's dive into some numbers then and see how things went during this holiday season.
Let's start with some travel numbers, shall we?
Yes, of course.
When it comes to the Spring Festival, we talk about the greatest human migration on the planet, the Chunyun.
This year, during the first five days of the Chinese New Year, more than 16 billion trips across regions are expected, which means averaging at 320 million trips per day, which is up over 11 from last year.
The peak is on February 22nd. which is the peak for the whole 40-day Spring Festival travel rush.
And that's on travel side.
And specifically when it comes to the means of transportation.
People take, in the first 20 days of the holiday season, highways and regular national and provincial roads, basically people traveling by car.
They saw an average of over 200 million trips per day made by private passenger vehicles.
And that's pretty impressive as well.
And also by the 21st day of the Spring Festival Travel Rush.
The total cross-regional passenger flow for the first 20 days reached 5 billion trips, which is also up 5 from the same period in 2025.
So we are seeing new historical highs this year during the travel period.
Every year.
I think the numbers just continue to go up and up and up.
Yeah, and there's one thing you mentioned, like how people are traveling more by just driving on themselves.
And that is agreed by the Ministry of Transport as well, because about 80 of total travel is dominated by self-driving trips, because people's got the gears nowadays.
We've got over 550 million motor vehicles and that's nationwide in China and also 162 million new energy vehicles that were newly registered in the first half of the year 2025.
So that's all a growth up nearly 30% year on year for that total number here in China.
So, with all of these giant numbers of cars and automobile out there, it's certainly natural for people to want to travel, especially if you get a new car.
Yeah, and also during the holiday season it's almost toll free on all highways, so no wonder a lot of people choosing to travel by car.
Uh railway, obviously another popular way that people got around yes, and from february the 15th, which is the first day of the holiday, i believe, to the the last day, which is the yesterday 23rd, passenger flows were high, as family visits, migrant workers travel and also tourism.
So for in total railway passengers, we have 121 million passengers traveling by rail, which is up also 11 year-on-year, averaging on 13 million per day.
And the peak day was yesterday, the day that I also travel by the high-speed rail from Hangzhou to Beijing.
Oh, you came back yesterday too?
Yeah, on high-speed rail.
And that means I have 90 million fellow passengers traveling with me, which is also a new single day record for this year's travel rush.
Did you notice a difference?
Did it look different than taking the train any other time?
It was always packed.
Yeah, that's why I asked, because they're always packed.
But the thing is, you know, I'm traveling with a two-year-old.
And so when we were traveling by rail, I don't need to buy a ticket for a two-year-old.
I can choose to buy one for him to get a single seat.
And I tried to see whether I can get a last minute seat for a two year old, which normally works before the day of departure, because there are sometimes there are people just refund their ticket and change their travel plans, but I couldn't get one.
Um, you know minutes by minutes, but still i just can't get one.
Had to sit on your lap.
Yeah yeah, for five hours.
Sounds like free human seat.
Yeah, sounds like that would have been a long trip.
You mentioned that.
That's really something new this year too the new um flexible ticket refund policy.
That's as long as you order from the 12306, which is, which is the official railway booking platform, and you make a mistake.
That refund is also is all valid um, doable to for you within the 30 minutes after payment and at least four hours before departure, without a fee.
So that's something really cool.
It's just perhaps you miss those people that was getting their refund.
Yeah also maybe, perhaps i'm also on one of the busiest routes on has to be real, like beijing to guang.
My line is from beijing to shanghai And that's one of the businesses alongside with, for example, traveling between Beijing and Guangzhou, Shanghai and Kunming and Beijing and Harbin.
So these are pretty much on average, having 12000 trains operated per day and with over 1000 night high-speed trains traveling also daily between these two destinations.
Lots of people on the move.
Airplanes very busy obviously as well.
Flights, another popular way for people to get around.
In terms of trends, this year there was a bit of a reversal of a trend.
I think they might have even called it the reverse spring festival travel trend, where parents would travel to see their children in whatever city that their kids lived in to celebrate the New Year together.
Typically, the norm, of course, would be for kids to travel back home to their parents' home.
But it was the other way around this time.
Yeah, yeah.
This is a new trend this year.
Well, it's not a new thing.
Well, you know, reverse reunion where parents travel to where their kids lived.
Right.
It used to have to happen every year pretty much.
But this year is another historical high.
But that means that the kids invite their parents to visit the cities instead of returning home.
And that normally happening between a smaller city to a bigger city.
So now this year we are seeing, for example, 18% of Beijing bound travelers were 50 plus.
And also passengers over 60 years old rose by about 10%.
And there are also popular routes surrounding that.
For example, there are more people traveling from Chengdu to Beijing and also from Chengdu to Shanghai.
And also there are more people traveling from Hangzhou to Guangzhou, from Xi'an to Shenzhen and also from Zhengzhou to Shenzhen.
You can see that bigger cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, are one of the popular destinations.
And also many of these senior travelers, they flew for the first time.
So their first ever flight tickets up 20% this year.
So there are more people taking advantage.
I think it's also because a lot of these transport means there are Launching senior friendly services, not only on railways but also on flights.
That'll be an exciting spring festival event.
Get on an airplane for the first time.
Yeah.
See how you like it.
You mentioned all those different cities and I think it was probably great for those cities because it was an extended nine day holiday this time around.
And that provided consumers with some additional leisure time and also some extra opportunity for some different types of experience, like perhaps flying for the first time.
So that would mean then that overall consumption saw some increases as well.
Yeah, sure.
Especially within the cultural and experimental consumption this year.
That's beyond traditional New Year goods and reunion dinners.
We see that um, there was strong participation in cultural and immersive experiences such as going to a show, like folk performances, the heritage exhibitions and themed events.
I personally took my boyfriend, who came to china a few, a few days, one week ahead of the spring festival Travel season.
And I took him during the holiday period to a dance drama, the one of the most iconic dance dramas in China.
And he loved it.
Oh, nice.
He was the only foreign audience among Chinese that one particular show we were at, but apparently people were flocking in all everybody.
Well, all the seats were occupied in that one theater that we went.
So that's something new, or rather not so new, but people tend to participate a bit more during the holiday period.
And also some other highlights include um spending during the chinese new year season.
For example, in Guangdong province in southern China's Guangzhou, travel agency bookings rose 123 year on year.
And popular destinations like Shantou saw hotel bookings surge 80 and more, among the fastest nationwide.
Oh, that became like a hotspot for people to go to.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I saw on my WeChat moment, at least two families were in Guangzhou during the same period.
And they were like having different kind of food, the dim sum culture and also the yingge drum performance.
You know it's very local to the Chaoshan region region down in the southern china and everything was like so vibrant and in painting in color red and so so colorful and beautiful.
Yeah, and also because i think for a lot of people, especially for us living in the northern part of china, guangdong is one of the warmer places where you can actually go to, for example, a flower market.
Yeah, you can see fresh flowers blossoming in open air.
So that's one of the reasons why people choose places like Guangdong and Hainan.
And Hangzhou.
Yeah, and Hangzhou as well which, believe me, is another one of the examples of the cultural consumption.
I saw a lot of people taking photoshoots by the West Lake.
Oh, like hiring people?
Yeah, hiring people.
They dress up in traditional Hanfu costumes dressed up fully, make up and going around because by the West Lake there are a lot of traditional Chinese architectures and parks and different.
There are also some of the classics temples as well, up by alongside of the lake, and there are just people flocking in lining up at a specific spot waiting for their photographer to take that photo for them, And I think it cost about 1000 yuan with the full makeup costume and also Photoshop afterwards.
Creating some very pretty memories.
What was the temperature down there, by the way?
It's around 20 degrees, which is a blessing because in some regions during the Spring Festival holiday I think I saw over the news there is a temperature drop during the holiday season.
It definitely was not 20 in Beijing, that's for sure.
It was really windy here in Beijing.
All right, let's switch over to the box office, shall we?
Let's go check out what was happening in the movie theaters.
What types of numbers did we see there?
Yeah, well, the total box office this year is booming too.
It closed at 5.75 billion yuan, or roughly 832 million US dollars.
So proving that going to cinema has really become a part of the Spring Festival holiday celebrations among a lot of the families here in China.
So among the eight new films competing for the Spring Festival market, which also is one of the most competitive box office seasons of the year, one movie called Pegasus 3 hit the champion this year.
And really I haven't watched the first and the second one, but apparently the third one is well received because it features some of the really cool actors.
The legendary racer Zhang Chi was played by Shen Teng, Chinese actor, Shen Teng, a very popular comic and actor.
And then I heard that people who watch it, did you watch it?
My dad watched it.
He really liked it.
And also one of the reasons is because, where this film was filmed, it was filmed part of it was filmed in Gansu, in Sichuan province, which is also one of the top travel destinations.
It has a lot of very beautiful scenic natural sceneries with mountains.
You can also have a peak of the Plato and also the lakes.
So I guess it's one of the reasons because the landscape is very diverse.
And also because of the storyline, I guess.
So it's not just about car racing.
Yeah, it's not just about car racing.
Any other films worth mentioning that were really popular during the holiday?
Another one's really surprising.
It's called Scare Out by famous director Zhang Yimou, who also directed the 2008 Olympic opening in Beijing.
So this film surprisingly centered on contemporary national security, and the director himself said that the significance of this movie goes beyond being just a film.
It's our way of playing tribute to the heroes working on the hidden front.
So we may never know who they are, but it is precisely countless such unsigned individuals who safeguard the peace and reunion we enjoy at this moment.
So yeah, it's really of a memorial kind of meaning coming from that movie.
In fourth spot, this one stood out to me boonie bears.
I still consider myself relatively new to China, but not so new that I don't know about the Boonie Bears.
Boonie Bears come up every time.
I was going to say, is it every year they put one out?
This is called the Boonie Bears, the Hidden Protector.
It was the 12th installment in the very long running franchise.
It did really well.
It got 714 million yuan.
That's about $100 million at the box office during the holidays.
So well done there.
All right, let's turn our pages to spending in terms of consumers.
Where were they spending?
How were they spending money this time around?
So during the first four days of our holiday, the average daily sales of key retail and catering businesses nationwide rose by 8 year-on-year compared with the same period in 2025.
And that means food traffic was also on the rise in the first three days of the holiday.
78 major pedestrian streets and commercial districts monitored by the Ministry of Commerce saw visitor numbers increase also by about five percent year on year and the total sales also grew by about five percent.
So you, you can see that people are going out spending, purchasing and also eating out a lot.
Yeah um, which would?
Would that be a cultural change?
A little bit, a little bit yeah, because in the old times well, at least 10, 15 years ago, when i was younger the Especially the New Year Eve dinner, you have to go home and make it yourself.
That's the highlight of that evening, if not watching the gala in the meantime.
But this year, you can't even book a table out there in a lot of the restaurants.
Even a week ahead, my dad tried to book us a table for the entire family in one of the very famous Peking duck place in Beijing.
And they say it's all booked out, only one small one left.
And you requested like 10 people.
We don't have that big of a room or table left for you.
And that's said, agreed by a lot of other Chinese families that they hear either everything was fully booked out there in the restaurants or they'll tell you we only have an early lunch slot, meaning that you have to give up the table before the lunchtime at 12 30 so they give you a time.
Yeah, so that.
So you have like a brunch or the early dinner in the afternoon, something like that.
And so make this all, make the last minute plans of booking before the the, the chinese new year's eve, or even afterwards just throughout the holiday, extra hard.
So you kind of have to decide a bit earlier.
That's how we see it, as long as you see wait in front of any kind of the big restaurants.
At least that's the case here in Beijing.
You kind of need to wait at least for 40 minutes, if not one hour to two hours to get a seat.
That's a little bit of shifting nowadays that people tend to eat out a bit more and try out different cuisine.
And instead of just cooking at home, of course, we still cook at home.
It's just a changing of habits.
Yeah.
So next year, it's going to be on people's radar.
If you want to make a reservation for a restaurant, you're going to have to do it much, much earlier.
Well, that's good news, though.
The restaurant sector, obviously, very, very strong during the spring festival.
And it's not just about maybe a shift there in in the culture itself, but also, you know, during the festival time.
I think it's fair to say that people want to.
You know, people have been in the office for a long time, many months uh, from the previous holiday want to get out there and spend a little bit of money, so the restaurant industry was able to benefit from that.
Yeah, and also for travelers like us um, when we are going to a different city, we of course want to check out some of the must eat list In that city.
For example, in Hangzhou, we went to a very famous, supposed to have like a hundred year history called Lo Wai Lou, which is also packed.
We went there at around 2 pm in the afternoon and we thought we don't need to wait in line because it's not really lunchtime.
But we still have to wait for about half an hour for a table.
Not too bad.
Not too bad compared to, you know, other restaurants.
But, you know, it's off-peak time.
But still, you have to wait.
It's worth it.
It was good?
It was good.
Yum, yum, yum.
Now, this was maybe a little bit surprising when it came to what people were buying meaning things cars.
We're a major driver, pun intended.
Around 611000 vehicles were traded in, boosting new car sales up to 100 billion yuan over actually.
That's about $14 billion plus, which I thought, oh, I didn't know this was car buying season.
But I think for a lot of people, it obviously was.
The first three days of the holiday...
Sales of those were increased and also wearable devices.
As we go down the list.
On major platforms those jumped 20.
Smart glasses surged by two and a half times.
Smart glucose monitors climbed by 49%.
Those were a hot ticket item too.
And then shopping, continuing on with the shopping spree news, if you will.
Hainan Free Trade Port also picked up its pace.
Yeah, that's in the first four days of the holiday.
The offshore duty-free sales in Hainan already reached
970 million yuan.
That's up 15.8% year on year.
So in general, the spring festival holiday didn't just bring celebrations.
It delivered a solid boost to consumer confidence and also spending momentum.
Me personally, I purchased a translation earpiece, translation headphone for my parents.
One pair for my parents, one pair for my boyfriend, because they don't speak each other's language, and that worked pretty fine.
Just the little time lag was a bit annoying at the very beginning, but soon they managed to work it out.
So you just put them in your ears and then you just speak.
My dad speaks Mandarin Chinese and my boyfriend answers in English.
Wow.
That's like a movie scene.
I know, right?
So yeah, you mentioned smart glasses.
We tried to get that too, but that was a bit more pricier.
So just translation glasses.
Good for travel, folks.
That's really cool.
I was curious about how well those work.
So they worked really well.
It was just a delay.
A little bit of delay.
They feature AI integrated functions so that you get simultaneous translation, but with a little bit of delay after the other language was spoke, that's.
That's easier on you too.
Otherwise you would have been doing that translation.
I almost died on the first night.
Uh, what about travel?
Inbound travel?
Um trends during the holiday period lots of people visiting yeah, lots of people visiting in the.
In just the past two weeks um, the flight reservations from thailand, the republic of korea malaysia, vietnam and singapore have surged by more than 400 year on year.
That's according to CGTN.
So figures from one of the leading domestic travel booking platforms says that the flight booking to the Chinese mainland made by travelers holding non-Chinese passport grew 20 year on year during the holiday.
And that's a huge increase.
That's true because everywhere I took my boyfriend to, we were all just inside Beijing.
You see a lot of faces that's apparently not chinese walking around and yeah, they were greeting each other.
When they see each other, even though they're they're they're just strangers to each other, but they see each other, all landing in beijing at the same time, traveling in the same spot, that's like something.
No no, that's the expat head.
Nod really.
Yeah, so that's.
The thing disappears after you've been in a place for a while.
But for the new people, they're always like looking around, like Hello hello, hello.
Oh, I know another person.
Hi, hi.
That's interesting.
Different topic for a different day.
Yeah.
20 percent increase year on year from those countries that you mentioned and more.
That's really good news.
It's a sign that the word has gotten out fully.
Right.
I think that, you know, China is a cool place to come and visit.
And for a lot of people who maybe have never experienced Spring Festival before, what better time to come, if you're going to come anyway?
Exactly.
And also during the spring festival holiday.
There are a lot of activities out there, like temple fairs, like the drum performance in Chaoshan region.
And of course, in cities like Chongqing, they have like drum performances.
I think one of my friends who went to Liuyang in Hunan province, which is known for their firecrackers,
And they put on a massive, massive firecracker show during the Spring Festival every year.
And this year, they also incorporated some of the drone performances as well.
So it's really cool.
And also you can see a lot of special arrangements for visitors to really can experience a lot of the Chinese traditional cultures in this particular period.
So that's why I think more and more people, especially for those coming from South Korea Vietnam Singapore, Australia and the United States, are coming to China this year to get a peek of Chinese culture.
Yeah, yeah.
And what a time to come for sure.
As we finish up, there was another big special event, another New Year celebrated too.
Yeah, in Shizong, the Tibetan New Year also happened on February the 18th.
This is the first day of the Tibetan year of the horse.
And this year, how I envy them.
Their holiday is about 12 days long, which means they can take days off for both the spring festival and also their Tibetan New Year.
They're running from February the 15th to February the 26th, which means for people in Xizang they're still on holiday.
Don't you complain at all.
You hung out with john legend.
You were down in 20 degree temperatures eating at 100 year old restaurants.
I mean, what more do you want?
I want two more holidays.
Everybody would like to have a couple more.
Never get enough of holidays.
Yeah, exactly.
And also in Shizong, I think this year is particularly special because of the Year of the Horse.
You know, horse is also a big part in the Tibetan culture, like horse racing, horsemanship.
So, for example, on February the 20th, which is the third day of the Tibetan New Year, they have a grand traditional equestrian performance and horse racing take place.
Event took place in Lhasa, the capital city of Shizong.
And they have, like different categories and also sub events of horsemanship and dazzling, with more than 5000 spectators, including some of them traveling to Shizong during the holiday.
So you can see that in the year of the horse, not only in Shizong IV, a lot of ethnic groups in China like Mongolian as well horse is a major part.
So, like in the Spring Festival Gala, there is a song coming from Mongolian folk song called the Four Year Hailu Horse, which is a particular horse in Mongolia.
And the four year meaning four year old for a horse is like 20 years old for a human.
Oh, I didn't know that.
So it's supposed to be the period of your life where you have this the biggest potential, the strongest power, where you can be very brave, you can have a lot of freedom, which is basically what the song is about, anyway.
So you can see that the year of the horse horse is a big part of, But also apart from that, in regions like Shenzhen they are doing things pretty similar to the rest of China, like doing nails before the New Year.
Lovely.
Or like decorated for the holiday.
Yeah, you dress up, doing a bit of haircut and also buying flowers to decorate their homes and also buying blind boxes, which are everywhere in China.
It was.
Yeah, and we were in Hangzhou and pretty much if you buy some kind of a package in any of the restaurants or gift shops, there was blind boxes made based on Hangzhou specialties like tea, like braised pork, like.
I don't remember the rest.
The fish.
No, like a plushy toy in the shape of that.
Well, it sounds like everybody had an incredible holiday.
Numbers continue to increase year after year.
By the way, this is your boyfriend's first visit to China.
Yes.
And he did it during one of the busiest times of year.
Indeed.
My friends who, before they visited China and they asked, you know, like, oh, crowded or not.
I would always say the same thing. your definition of crowded is about to change.
So I wonder, did he experience that feeling too with so many people around?
He took one look at the Changdian temple fair and said, can we walk a bit further?
There's no escaping it, sir.
The next entrance will be just as packed, sir.
Yeah, I guess.
Well, back to the office for all of us, that is.
What happens at the end of a holiday whether we like it or not, huh?
