The number of Chinese tourists deciding to travel during the five-day Labour Day holiday at the start of next month could rival or exceed last year’s headcount despite higher global fuel prices, analysts said, adding travellers were likely to prefer shorter trips to save on transport costs.
Domestic flight bookings were up about 8% year-on-year, and domestic package-tour reservations were about 10% higher ahead of the break, even after fuel prices shot up because of the war in Iran, according to a survey by travel marketing and technology firm China Trading Desk.
Rural and second-tier city destinations in China were popular this year, it found, as well as “short-haul” trips to perennial favourites in other parts of East Asia.
“The bigger change is how they travel, not whether they travel,” said China Trading Desk CEO Subramania Bhatt. “Economic factors are now the top travel influence in the survey, and travellers are still willing to go but are making more deliberate, value-checked choices rather than booking blindly.”
China is taking May 1 to 5 off this year for Labour Day, also called May Day. In some parts of China, school spring breaks overlapping with the holiday will give students up to eight days off.
Fuel prices began their precipitous rise after Tehran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a shipping route for some 20% of the world’s oil and gas exports, in response to US-Israeli military strikes which began on Feb 28. The United States later launched its own blockade of Iranian ports.
According to the International Air Transport Association, the global average jet fuel price for the week ending April 17 was UScopy84.63 a barrel – more than double the average for the previous year.
The price of diesel fuel – used by long-distance buses – has also risen sharply, with data provider Global Petrol Prices putting the global average on Monday at UScopy.55 a litre (US$5.87 per US gallon), up from UScopy.20 a litre before the United States and Israel attacked Iran.
Higher oil and jet fuel prices translated to a 5% to 10% increase in base air fares, Oxford Economics said in a research note released on April 16. It said that jump was unlikely to throw off an “otherwise positive” growth trajectory for global air passenger demand this year, except for in the Middle East and Africa.
China’s National Immigration Administration logged 163 million exits and entries, a year-on-year rise of 15.3%, in the first quarter of this year. That trend was expected to continue into the Labour Day break for both domestic and international travel, Bhatt said.
However, travel media outlets have reported multiple cancellations by Chinese and regional airlines flying to Bangkok, Phuket, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.
The 8% growth in domestic flight bookings was “modest”, Bhatt said, and the “clearest acceleration” ahead of the May break was in domestic short-distance, land-based travel, especially self-driven trips to nearby destinations.
China Travel Desk data shows that self-drive bookings were up more than 50% year on year for the May holiday, domestic hotel bookings were more than 10% higher and rural tourism was up some 40%.
Marketing firm Dragon Trail International said in a traveller sentiment report that most May holiday trips would be “intraregional”. It said Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea and Thailand were shaping up to be the top destinations of choice.
More than half of Chinese outbound travellers planned to increase spending on activities and experiences, and 49% anticipated more spending on dining, the report said, while also highlighting an overall “softening travel intention” to nearly all regions of the world this year.