GuShiio.com Wen| World Network merchants
During the Spring Festival of 2025, as New Year’s Eve is officially included as a legal holiday, the holiday will be extended to 8 days, and people’s enthusiasm for travel will be completely ignited. However, the higher travel costs of popular destinations such as Harbin and Sanya, as well as concerns about the crowds of people in scenic spots, have changed many people’s minds.
Under the general trend of rational consumption, more urban white-collar workers are no longer willing to spend huge sums of money to check in at popular destinations.“Pingti Tourism”Become their spiritual home for pursuing a peaceful vacation.
Of course, the so-called equalization means learning to spend small money to do big things or spend the right money to enjoy a better experience. On platforms such as Xiaohongshu, the topic of alternative destinations for this year’s Spring Festival travel has remained highly popular in the past month, with more than 2 million related notes.
“The upsurge in tourism consumption is essentially a change in young people’s tourism consumption concepts. They no longer chase popular trends and follow trends, but put new decision-making factors such as self-experience, personalized exploration, and more cost-effective choices. Put first. So what new travel trends have emerged during this year’s Spring Festival holiday?
Skiing is 400 yuan a day, and ice and snow swimming is balanced.
Yang Zhanwang, deputy general manager of Ctrip Zhejiang Branch, revealed to Tianxia Online Merchants: Judging from the current booking situation of the platform, the overall travel order volume in Harbin in December 2024 increased by about 10% year-on-year. This is in 2023. Growth achieved based on a high base. According to our data, Harbin is still the top tourist destination this year, and the Asian Winter Games and the implementation of the unilateral visa-free policy for Japan and South Korea are expected to attract many foreign tourists to Harbin. rdquo;
Today’s market is also supporting his judgment. According to the latest data, during the Spring Festival of 2025, Harbin’s travel booking orders increased by about 30% year-on-year, and the popularity remains unabated. Xiao Xie, a tour guide at a travel agency in Hangzhou, said: Previously, news of queuing in the Ice and Snow World has been on hot searches, so the biggest problem affecting people’s travel decisions is actually the fear of too many tourists and insufficient experience. rdquo;
Therefore, Altay, Xinjiang, Changchun, Jilin and other places have successfully become the most popular alternative destinations for ice and snow tours during the Spring Festival. Among them, Altay tourism popularity during the Spring Festival has increased by more than 60% year-on-year.
What is even more rare is that hotel prices in Altay have increased by only about 20% during the Spring Festival. Ctrip shows that the price of the local Wuzuan Hotel on New Year’s Eve is 400 yuan to 500 yuan, and the prices of some hotels and B & Bs near the Jiangjun Mountain Ski Resort are also No more than 500 yuan.
As a destination for skiing tours, Altay is also following up. In particular, it has launched extremely cost-effective skiing packages. During the Spring Festival, Altay has launched ski tickets, ice and snow tourism coupons for hotels and restaurants, and even price discounts for ski instructor services. Therefore, in terms of hard skiing consumption, the daily expenditure per person can be controlled at around 400 yuan.
Changchun’s Nanhu Park is open for free. Tourists participate in ice walking, ice slides and other projects, and the experience cost is basically tens of yuan.
For the consumption of Harbin Ice and Snow World, tickets this year are 325 yuan/person. If you add express passes to popular projects such as the big slide and Ferris wheel, it will cost 800 yuan/person. In contrast, Altay and Changchun are more economical options and can avoid crowds. In similar ice and snow tourism scenarios, many young consumers tend to emerging destinations with lower crowd gathering, a stronger sense of experience, and supporting services that have caught up in recent years.
Instead of going to Sanya, travel to Hainan and Guangxi to avoid the cold is popular
In contrast to ice and snow tourism, there are cold shelters represented by Hainan, Guangxi and other regions. There is also a saying of migratory birds swimming in the circle.
However, Sanya hotels, B & Bs, car rentals and other travel facilities have increased significantly during the Spring Festival, which is almost a normal situation over the years. During the Spring Festival holiday, the overnight room rates of high-end hotels such as Accor’s Sofitel and Raffles, Marriott’s Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott, and Hyatt’s Haitang Bay Grand Hyatt are basically between 3000 yuan and 6000 yuan.
As emerging cold escape destinations, Kunming and Nanning, which have good winter climate, still maintain people-friendly prices during the Spring Festival holiday, so tourism popularity is also rising rapidly. Zhang Xun, a Shanghai white-collar worker born in the 1990s, took his family to Kunming for a vacation this Spring Festival.The total travel expenses of the whole family are expected to be controlled within 20,000 yuan. Compared with the previous Spring Festival in Sanya, they can save at least 10,000 yuan.
“Although the climate in destinations such as Sanya in Hainan, Tengchong in Yunnan and Xishuangbanna may be warmer, prices are basically higher during the Spring Festival. So we chose Kunming. Not only is the local transportation more convenient, but there are also hot springs, botanical gardens, zoos and other projects. We can stay in a better hotel. There is a restaurant downstairs where you can order New Year’s Eve dinner. It is fully equipped and convenient to travel, which is suitable for people like us who have both old and young people. rdquo;
At present, the price of air tickets from Shanghai to Kunming and Nanning is around 1500 yuan during the Spring Festival. Data from domestic mainstream OTA (Online Travel Platform) shows that the price of local urban resort hotels in Nanning is around 400 yuan, and Marriott’s high-end brands The Spring Festival price of luxury selection is also around 1100 yuan; There are also many options for hotels in Kunming. The price of a general resort hotel is about 350 yuan per night, and the price of high-end hotels such as Crowne Plaza and Wanda Jiahua is less than 1100 yuan on New Year’s Eve.
Outbound tourism: Vietnam and Japan are becoming more popular
From the perspective of outbound tourism, this year’s Spring Festival tourism in Thailand is a bit cold.
During the Spring Festival in the past few years, the volume of air tickets and hotel bookings in Thailand has often increased significantly, and round-trip air tickets have even soared to more than 5000 yuan. However, this year’s air ticket price increase is not obvious. According to ticketing website information, excluding baggage allowance, the round-trip air ticket from Shanghai to Bangkok before and after the Spring Festival holiday is about 1400 yuan, while the round-trip air ticket from Shanghai to Phuket is also about 2000 yuan, which is completely lower than the price increase in previous years.
On the one hand, the reason behind this comes from tourists ‘concerns about Thailand’s safety. Some OTA platforms and travel product sales agents reported to “Tianxia Online” that most tourists ‘hotel and itinerary orders are concentrated in Phuket, Koh Samui and other areas. Many tourists specifically choose not to go through central cities such as Bangkok and go directly to the island. vacation. On the other hand, travel costs are high. On some OTA platforms, most of the prices of five-diamond hotels in Bangkok are still around RMB 1200/night during the Spring Festival. However, accommodation and catering services on popular islands are due to the increased concentration of tourists. On the contrary, there is a significant price increase.
Therefore, in terms of outbound tourism, this year’s Spring Festival has spawned two destinations that are equal to Thailand.
One is Vietnam, which focuses on cost performance. As an emerging tourist destination in Southeast Asia, the popularity of Vietnam during the Spring Festival is also rising rapidly: especially mature destinations such as Nha Trang and Da Nang, the local tourism facilities are not bad. The well-known travel search engine KAYAK platform shows that the average price of Nha Trang hotels during the Spring Festival is 600 yuan to 1000 yuan/night, which is lower than that of destinations such as Phuket and Koh Samui in Thailand.
As a result, some OTA platforms take advantage of the iron while the iron is hot, targeting Vietnam tourists, and have launched relatively more cost-effective alternative travel packages during the Spring Festival. For example, starting from Hangzhou, a 6-day and 5-night package including air tickets and hotels has a per capita price of about 4000 yuan, while Thai island products are mainly between 5000 yuan and 7000 yuan.
In addition, Vietnam’s visa policy is also relatively loose. In order to catch this overflow this year, the National Tourism Administration of Vietnam also provided shopping discounts and cultural experience activities for China tourists visiting during the Spring Festival in several popular tourist destinations. Currently, several hotels in Nha Trang and Da Nang in Vietnam have launched Spring Festival packages for China holiday tourists. Benefits include free room upgrades, local specialty breakfast and free (or high discount) SPA services.
Japan, another popular destination for outbound travel during the Spring Festival, attracts the attention of many shopping and skiing tourists because of its visa policies, consumer economy, cultural activities, etc. Statistics from Qunar. com show that as of January 3, the number of ticket bookings to Japan during the 2025 Spring Festival on the platform increased by 2.3 times year-on-year. The popular destinations are Tokyo, Osaka, Sapporo, Nagoya and Fukuoka, and the top 5 tourist destinations are Shanghai respectively., Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Shenzhen.
In response to the travel traffic during the Spring Festival, major domestic airlines have recently opened or resumed Japanese routes. In early December 2024, the Junxiang Airlines Beijing-Nagoya route finally resumed again after a two-month suspension; then, with the arrival of the Hokkaido ski season, Capital Airlines ‘Beijing Daxing to Sapporo, Japan, officially set sail; On January 26, 2025, Air China resumed non-stop passenger routes from Chongqing to Tokyo; on February 3, Hainan Airlines opened an international route from Haikou to Tokyo (Narita).
Corresponding to the opening of routes is the increase in passenger load factors. Take Spring Airlines, which has a Chongcang China-Japan route, as an example. According to some media reports, the airline’s Guangzhou-Osaka route was basically full during the Spring Festival, and the occupancy rate of the route to Fukuoka was also around 70%, and continued to grow. Among them, the overall passenger intake on Japan routes exceeded 80%.
“Real money consumption coupons, the Spring Festival once again stimulates the willingness to travel
As the tourism market matures, more and more tourists are choosing niche destinations to avoid the congestion of popular attractions.
Reducing people’s travel costs is still an important factor in stimulating consumers to make decisions. During the Spring Festival of 2025, local governments and e-commerce platforms have launched cultural tourism consumption vouchers to stimulate tourism consumption and enhance tourists ‘travel experience. These coupons not only cover popular destinations, but are also widely used in alternative destinations, providing tourists with more benefits.
Among them, Guangdong and Henan mainly promote discounts on hotels, scenic spots, and tourist routes. Guangdong provides consumers with a maximum reduction of 200 yuan, while Henan has introduced a variety of online booking exemption policies such as 900-300 and 600-200. In addition, according to statistics from Tianxia Online Merchants, more than ten cities including Xiamen, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Yancheng, and Qionghai also provided real money coupons during the Spring Festival to stimulate consumption by reducing travel costs.
According to the “2025 Spring Festival Tourism Consumption Trend Report” released by the China Association of Travel Agents, the utilization rate of cultural tourism consumption coupons reached more than 70% during the Spring Festival, which directly drove the growth of local tourism revenue. For example, through the issuance of cultural tourism consumption coupons in Beihai, Guangxi, tourism revenue increased by about 40% year-on-year during the Spring Festival; tourism revenue in Altay Region of Xinjiang increased by about 35% year-on-year through the issuance of ice and snow tourism consumption coupons.
The cost-effective route has already been introduced into the tourism industry, which may also mean that incubating and replacing destinations will be a trend and a new growth point for the urban economy during the Spring Festival.
