One of the world’s most extraordinary travel seasons commenced mid-January and is set to continue until 22 February 2025. Recently recognised by UNESCO as part of humanity’s official Intangible Cultural Heritage, the Chinese Lunar New Year and Spring Festival lasts 40 days and sees vast numbers of people using air, rail and roads to visit family and friends or simply take a break from their routine.
Travel and hotel bookings up despite economic gloom
Despite the current gloomy economic outlook in China, evidenced by problematic youth unemployment, a rise in low-paid jobs, low domestic consumer demand and a property crisis, data suggests festival travel will be just as popular as ever, with nine billion trips anticipated by authorities, a rise of 0.6 billion since last year.
Air ticket sales for multiple destinations are up by 50% year-on-year for the season with 90 million people expected to take to the skies. Private car journeys are predicted to hit the 7.2 billion mark, national television broadcaster CCTV says, while hotel reservations have increased “in some counties”. The destinations most in demand are reported as Beijing, Guangzhou, Harbin, Dali and Fuzhou.
Witness, also, the 510 million passenger trips that China Railway Group Company says it is expecting – an average of nearly 13 million trips per day during the holiday period.
How will transit systems cope?
This year rail travellers will enjoy what Global Times calls “a substantial relaxation of China’s visa-free transit policy” as well as an expansion of the nation’s transport capacity through new railways lines opened last year and 185 new high-speed trains.
What’s more, according to China Railway official Zhou Changfeng, additional trains and fast night services will help to make up the more than 14,000 passenger trains that are scheduled to operate over the season, adding half a million seat places – a capacity boost of 4%.
New reservation platforms, discounts and “personalized” robots
Tech improvements are also being brought in to ease the rail rush. “We have introduced digital passenger e-invoices, optimized student discount ticket rules, and launched a reservation service for students and migrant workers,” Zhou said. Some stations will see the introduction of priority lanes to ease congestion.
Discounted prices will help ease the strain on wallets too, with tickets slashed by up to 80% for regular journeys, while high-speed trains are offering 70% reductions.
And for non-Chinese travellers using rail services during this mass transit moment, the rail network is harnessing language translation devices as well as AI robots to welcome passengers and “personalize” guidance, officials say. One worker at Beijing Chaoyang said this would enhance the station’s “appeal among passengers”. Whether that’s really true or passengers would prefer to be assisted by a human has not been verified but those interviewed by Global Times reported journeys going “smoothly”.
