China boosts consumption with longer, realigned holidays but growing crowds daunt tourists

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By Ralph Jennings

Published May 30, 2026

Central government has added 5 days of public holidays this year, and local administrations are extending spring and autumn school breaks.

Two cities in southeastern China’s Fujian province, Fuzhou and Xiamen, have decided to introduce three-day spring and autumn school holidays, with Xiamen’s spring break extending the Ching Ming Festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day.

They have joined dozens of other Chinese localities offering additional school breaks in an effort to stimulate consumer spending – a persistent weak spot in the world’s second-largest economy.

The moves by Fuzhou and Xiamen, announced this month, coincide with extended public holidays nationwide. The central government had already added five days off this year as part of efforts to spur travel and boost consumption by encouraging people to take time off.

“China has traditionally had a limited number of long breaks,” Morgan Stanley analysts said in a research note issued in February. “As a stimulus, the government moved to expand public holidays.”

The New York-based financial services firm said it expected domestic travel to generate cumulative revenue of 50 trillion yuan (US$7.35 trillion) in five years and for domestic tourism spending to account for 18 per cent of per capita consumption in 2030, up from 13 per cent in 2023.

But big crowds can discourage travel. Simon Le Penhuizic, a 34-year-old Frenchman in Shanghai, stayed close to home during the Labour Day public holiday early this month and saw waves of tourists so large that he avoided hotspots near his home.

“Everybody travelling at the same time makes things more complex,” said Le Penhuizic, who lives in the Chinese financial centre with his wife and their two-year-old son.

Even so, data shows that extending the duration of public holidays has increased travel-related consumption.

On the first day of the May 1 to 5 Labour Day break, China’s most recent extended holiday, 24.84 million railway trips were recorded – a single-day record – and over the first four days of the holiday 117 million were made. Tourism spending during the break reached 185.49 billion yuan, up 2.9 per cent year on year, according to data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

During February’s nine-day Spring Festival break, domestic tourism spending rose by 126.5 billion yuan – or 18.7 per cent year on year – to 803.5 billion yuan. The government decided to extend the Chinese New Year holiday from eight days to a record nine late last year – making the break 12.5 per cent longer.

That followed the extension of two major holidays by the State Council in late 2024, with Chinese New Year’s Eve added as a day off for Spring Festival and May 2 declared a holiday after Labour Day.

“These shifting holidays have a clear impact on travel patterns – they create demand spikes, higher prices and pressure on transport systems and destinations,” said Deborah Rothe, a director at ITB Berlin, a German-based business platform for the global tourism industry.

These new school holidays are an emerging tool to drive ‘shoulder season’ travel

Morgan Stanley analysts

In another nod to consumption, China had, since 2022, encouraged local governments to pilot short school holidays by forming “peak travel windows for families”, the Morgan Stanley analysts said.

At least 27 cities and provinces had adopted an autumn break, typically two or three days from a weekend or public holiday, as of last year. Breaks aligned this year with Ching Ming and Labour Day in much of China.

“These new school holidays are an emerging tool to drive ‘shoulder season’ travel, easing overcrowding in summer and stimulating tourism in off-months,” the analysts said.

Chinese New Year, the May break and National Day in October are China’s longest holidays.

Rothe said annual changes to holiday dates around the world could “discourage” long-term trip planning, especially when official calendars were confirmed relatively late. According to ITB Berlin, South Korea, Vietnam and some Islamic countries also frequently change annual holiday dates.

“In those cases, travellers often book closer to departure and may be more cautious about planning long-haul trips,” Rothe said.

Long trips could leave travellers tired if they were required to work weekends to make up for lost time, a common practice in China, said Subramania Bhatt, CEO of the technology and marketing firm China Trading Desk.

Le Penhuizic said he preferred short weekend escapes that were not part of long holidays and would travel by air for longer breaks to avoid the scramble for scarce train tickets. “It’s kind of a lottery if you want (railway) tickets,” he said.

Rothe said travel surges during long holidays created staffing and capacity “challenges” for airlines, hotels and train services that had to adapt quickly to shifting demand patterns. China’s railway operator, for example, added 2,225 trains for Labour Day passengers.

Bhatt said China’s November announcement of the holiday schedule for early this year had given some travellers insufficient time to book complex trips. China Trading Desk’s first-quarter outbound travel sentiment survey showed that 28.8 per cent of respondents were planning travel within four to six months and 20.1 per cent within seven to 12 months.

“Longer holidays announced well in advance have a strong positive effect, especially on higher-value travel,” Bhatt said. “China should announce the full holiday calendar early and keep it stable, because certainty supports advance bookings and industry planning.”

To ease pressure during travel peaks and create “more stable consumption patterns”, this year’s government work report introduced the idea of offering staggered paid leave at different times of the year, Xinhua reported.