Tourism’s Untapped Business Opportunity: “Chunyun” (Chinese Spring Festival)
In China the Ministry of Transport said it estimates over 3 billion trips will be made by Chinese people during the Spring Festival travel rush in 2017 “Chunyun”, a 40-day travel frenzy known as the hectic period surrounding the Chinese lunar New Year, or Spring Festival. Contrary to many westerners calling it “Chinese New Years” — In China, the festivities are known as spring festival (春節) or Lunar New Year (農曆新年) since it is determined by the lunar calendar. This year’s Spring Festival falls on January 28 meaning that the largest human migration in the world starts on January 13 and will last until February 21. Travel insiders will do good to keep in mind that from late January to mid-February, Korea, Vietnam and other countries in Asia also celebrate Lunar New Year.
But back to China, Spring Festival is undoubtedly the country’s most important family holiday, with hundreds of millions of people heading to their hometowns to meet relatives and friends. This holiday heavily tests China’s transport system as many of the coastal cities see their residents travel into the heart of rural China. The state council of the People’s Republic of China says numbers have steadily increased over the past decade and 2017 will see an increase of 2,2% in comparison to 2016.
Outbound and national tourism statistics show us that the Chinese have never been more affluent and keen to travel. Another point to consider is that there has never been more migrant workers in big cities who have found employment away from their rural homes. Every year, stress on the transport system becomes greater despite significant improvements in China’s travel infrastructure. Chinese authorities have stated that 2.5 billion trips will be made by land, 356 million by rail, 58 million by plane and 43 million by sea (Source: China News Agency). Considering the latter, it will be interesting how 2017 (the year of the rooster) will cope with this growing demand. There seems to be a clear tourism industry innovation opportunity here for anyone who can help solve this annual “migr-ageddon”with a new travel service or product.
CNN states that Chinese State media estimated 6 million Chinese have decided to travel internationally this year. In 2016 online bookings per capita for overseas independent trips went up by 30% representing a total spend of 6,800 Yuan ($985) per person. Some popular outbound destinations are Hong Kong, Macao and Thailand. Around 70–75% of the 140 million Chinese international holidays are made within Asia.
To reduce crowds during the rush and to boost transport efficiency, China has been stepping up construction of high-speed railways, which exceeded 20,000 km in total length this year making it the world’s longest high-speed railway system. This new travel industry product has trains traveling 300 kilometers (186 miles) an hour! Regular service is available between Beijing and Guangzhou, the main metropolis in southeastern China. The high-speed trains are also considerably more expensive than the heavily subsidized older passenger trains. A second-class seat on the new bullet trains from Beijing to Guangzhou costs 865 Yuan ($139) one way, compared with 426 Yuan ($68) for the cheapest bunk on one of the older trains, which also have narrow, uncomfortable seats for as little as 251 Yuan ($40). A good way to imagine how many train tickets are sold in China is to imagine that during seven days online sales for train tickets will average 1 ticket sold per second.
More astonishing is the fact that if one was to calculate the spend on eating and shopping alone that Chinese will be making over this important period of the year the total amount would result in a staggering USD 100 billion.
The world’s largest annual movement of human beings must and is an opportunity for the tourism industry. Just to put into perspective what 3 billion trips means. To match this type of opportunity the tourism industries of Oceania, Africa, Europe, North and South America would have to join their populations and have them all travel within a time frame of 40 days… every single year. In 2016 the average Chunyun traveler journeyed 410 kms. (source: CNN) which is the equivalent of 5,430 trips to the Mars and back. Surely, with so much concentrated travel happening in China, the global tourism industry will react to this opportunity with tailor-made product for Chinese tourists.
