The number of domestic tourists in China surged during the eight-day Golden Week holiday from a year earlier and surpassed pre-coronavirus levels, official data showed. However, growth showed signs of slowing and was weaker than the government had expected.
During the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday, which ended on Friday, 826 million domestic trips were made, up 71.3 per cent from a year earlier and 4.1 per cent higher than in 2019 before the pandemic, according to data from China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
However, Goldman Sachs said in a note to clients on Monday that the pace of travel growth for the Golden Week holiday had slowed compared with May's Labour Day and June's Dragon Boat Festival holidays, suggesting that the recovery in the services sector had slowed.
The investment bank noted that China's tourist arrivals during this year's Labor Day and Dragon Boat Festival were 19.1 percent and 12.8 percent above 2019 levels, respectively.
China lifted strict quarantine restrictions at the end of last year, which hit the service sector the hardest.
The latest figures are also lower than the government's pre-holiday forecasts for tourist arrivals and revenue. China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism had estimated that 896 million trips would be made during the golden week, bringing in 782.5 billion yuan ($108.75 billion) in revenue.
During the eight-day holiday, China's domestic tourism market generated 753.4 billion yuan in revenue, more than double from a year earlier and up 1.5% from 2019, according to official data.
Official figures show that inbound and outbound travel has also surged year-on-year over the holiday, returning to 85 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, but also below government forecasts.
As the Mid-Autumn Festival coincides with National Day this year, the Golden Week is longer than usual. The average daily inbound and outbound passengers during the eight-day holiday reached 1.477 million. The figure is equivalent to 85.1 percent of the 2019 level, but almost four times the 2022 average, the National Immigration Administration said. The government had estimated that the average number of inbound and outbound travelers during the holiday would be 1.58 million per day.
China's commerce ministry said retail sales at the country's major retail and restaurant companies rose 9 per cent in the first seven days of the Golden Week holiday from a year earlier. According to Dengta, a movie data tracking platform, China's National Day movie box office revenue reached 2.7 billion yuan, with the average daily box office revenue higher than that of 2022, but far lower than that of 2021 and 2019.
While China's services sector continues to recover, the domestic real estate sector appears to be struggling despite more government support measures. According to the state-run Securities Times, data from the China Index Academy showed that during the eight-day holiday, the average daily transaction area of new residential buildings in 35 representative cities across the country fell by about 20 per cent compared with last year's National Day holiday and the 2019 holiday.