People walk at a pedestrian street near Shichahai scenic area in Beijing, capital of China, July 30, 2025. Beijing has vigorously developed its night economy since the beginning of this summer, featuring local cuisine, outdoor films, music festivals, and night markets. (Xinhua/Li Xin)

With the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holidays starting on Wednesday, Chinese government agencies and localities are gearing up efforts to prepare for a surge in travel and consumption across the country. Analysts said the upcoming Golden Week is expected to further boost the unleashing of domestic demand and inject strong impetus into efforts to achieve the country's annual economic targets.

The National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holidays will last from Wednesday to October 8. This extended vacation period allows Chinese citizens to enjoy an eight-day break for travel and leisure.

During the eight-day holiday, more than 12,000 cultural activities will be held across the country, including over 300 large-scale light shows and more than 500 intangible cultural heritage exhibition events, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

"This year's National Day holiday coincides with the Mid-Autumn Festival, creating the longest holidays of the year, and residents' willingness to travel may reach a new high," Zhang Yi, CEO of iiMedia Research Institute, told the Global Times on Saturday.

Soaring tourism fervor

According to data major online travel agency Trip.com sent to the Global Times, the number of interprovincial travel bookings for the upcoming holidays has seen a year-on-year increase of 45 percent. On the platform, searches for hotels in remote areas such as Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region and North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region have surged by 60 percent year-on-year, with their unique natural sceneries attracting travelers, it noted.

The China State Railway Group Co projected that a total of 219 million passenger trips are expected during the 12-day travel season running from September 29 to October 10, with October 1 set to be the peak day.

It's worth noting that both outbound and inbound tourism are increasingly heating up for the upcoming holidays. According to data sent to the Global Times by Qunar, another travel services platform, Chinese travelers have generated the highest number of hotel bookings in countries including Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Australia.

Fueled by the China travel trend, many foreign visitors are coming to China to experience the holiday atmosphere, with the top ten destinations including Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Chengdu, according to Qunar. 

Murat Tursun, who owns a shop selling Atlas silk products - a Xinjiang specialty - told the Global Times in Beijing that there has been a notable increase in customers from countries including Russia, Spain and Indonesia recently.

Many consumers are first attracted by the vibrant colors and patterns of the silk, and upon learning that it is an intangible cultural heritage, they express deep interest in these products and purchase pieces as souvenirs for friends and family or keep them as cherished memories, he said.

Local governments and businesses responded to the travel rush with innovative initiatives, such as consumer vouchers and home appliance trade-in programs, aimed at tapping into the holiday spirit and bolstering consumption.

For instance, the Guangzhou International Shopping Season is scheduled to kick off on Monday in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province, during which over 3,000 promotion activities will be carried out across the city. During the National Day holidays, the city will issue catering consumption vouchers, according to the local government website.

A staff member of a scenic spot in Zhangjiajie, Central China's Hunan Province, told the Global Times that "foreign tourist arrivals have surged significantly. During the National Day holidays, we will strengthen tourism reception services. For foreign visitors, we have introduced multilingual medical services within scenic areas to enhance safety."

Consumption in full swing

The travel fervor over the Golden Week exemplifies China's great economic resilience, with all corners of the country harnessing the power of tourism to inject vitality into holiday consumption.

"Holidays are not only peak spending seasons but also key windows for unlocking consumer potential. Service consumption is expected to be greatly boosted by the holiday - from movies and concerts to operas and nighttime activities," Jiang Yiyi, a tourism and sports expert at Beijing Sport University, told the Global Times on Saturday.

She said new business models integrating culture and sports as well as tourism are expected to boom during the upcoming holidays, with events such as the China Open in Beijing drawing global visitors and boosting local spending, Jiang said.

In addition, the Golden Week is also expected to stand out for the emergence of new consumption models and experiments, which will not only warm up the year-end market but could also provide insights into consumption patterns and product innovation for early next year, Zhang said.

As many residents will travel during the holiday, renting an unmanned drone has become a trend for recording their travels. A 29-year-old Beijing-based white-collar worker surnamed Chen told the Global Times on Saturday that he plans to rent a camera for the holidays. "After searching through multiple stores online, I finally found one available for rental, but there were price hikes due to the surge in demand," the worker said.

Ahead of the eight-day holidays, Hangzhou in East China's Zhejiang Province on Thursday launched a pedestrian zone for the launch of advanced black technologies, where visitors can easily experience various services provided by robots, watch virtual digital human runway shows, and test a 3D virtual try-on, according to the official WeChat account of a local government agency.

The accelerated integration of advanced technologies, tourism and consumption, along with evolving business models, is creating new opportunities for sustained growth, further consolidating the role of consumption as a key driver of the economy, Zhang said, expressing confidence in China's vast market, and its strong economic resilience and great potential.

Thanks to a series of targeted policies to expand domestic demand and improve people's livelihoods this year, China's consumer spending in the first eight months expanded at a solid pace, with retail sales of consumer goods growing 4.6 percent year-on-year to 32.39 trillion yuan, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on September 15.

China's Ministry of Commerce and eight other government departments on September 16 rolled out a package of measures to augment service consumption, as part of broader efforts to spur domestic demand and unleash consumption potential.

The measures, comprising 19 items in five areas, encourage popular cultural, museum, and tourist sites to extend operating hours and optimize reservation systems, as well as the implementation of no-reservation policies based on local conditions and practical needs.