Cross-border trips near pre-pandemic levels during China’s ‘golden week’ holiday

The week-long National Day break saw more than 13 million travellers crossing the mainland’s borders

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Visitors pictured in the historic heart of Macau, a popular destination for mainland visitors, during last week’s holiday. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 7:23pm, 8 Oct 2024

More than 13 million journeys were made across mainland China’s borders during the recent “golden week” holiday, almost reaching pre-pandemic levels, according to the country’s immigration authorities.

The week-long holiday – which this year started on October 1, China’s National Day, and ended on Monday – is traditionally one of the country’s main travel periods involving billions of journeys inside and outside the country.

This year’s holiday came as China’s economy is grappling with flagging growth and with consumer confidence lingering just above historic lows.

In the past week, an average of 1.87 million people a day crossed the mainland Chinese border, a 25.8 per cent year-on-year increase, the National Immigration Administration said on Tuesday. The total number of trips over the week stood at 13.1 million.

For the same period in 2019, two months before the start of the Covid pandemic, the daily average stood at 1.98 million trips.

This year’s cross-border journeys included 7.58 million trips by mainland residents, a year-on-year increase of 33.2 per cent and 4.49 million by Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan residents, up 13.2 per cent year-on-year. The remaining journeys – 1.01 million in total – were made by foreign residents, a year-on-year increase of 37.2 per cent, the administration said.