A Fuxing high-speed train travels along the rails in Changzhou, East China's Jiangsu Province on January 8, 2026. Photo: VCG

The cross-regional passenger flow, as well as railway and civil aviation passenger volume during this year's Spring Festival travel period are expected to hit new highs, People's Daily reported on Wednesday, citing the information from the national video conference on the 2026 Spring Festival travel rush held on the same day.

The conference also said the self-drive trips will remain the primary mode of travel during that period and highlighted the pressure on road traffic management, safety risk prevention, and responses to extreme weather, and strong measures are needed to effectively ensure the safety.

As the Spring Festival approaches, travelers across China are preparing to embark on their journeys by road, rail, and air, marking the start of chunyun—the world's largest annual human migration. The 2026 Spring Festival travel season will span 40 days, from February 2 to March 13.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said on Monday that passenger traffic in China's civil aviation sector during this year's Spring Festival travel rush is expected to hit a record high, reaching 95 million trips, with a daily average of 2.38 million passengers, representing a year-on-year increase of approximately 5.3 percent.

Based on current preliminary flight plans from airlines, China's civil aviation sector is expected to operate 780,000 flights during the period, with a daily average of 19,400 flights, up 5 percent year-on-year.

The CAAC said winter sports trips in northern China and warm getaways in southern China, continues to rise and outbound and inbound travel routes are also expected to experience new peaks, benefiting from favorable measures such as extended holidays, and transit visa exemption policies.

The Yangtze River Delta railway network is projected to handle over 100 million passenger trips during the 2026 Spring Festival travel season, marking the first time it will hit this milestone, reported the Xinhua News Agency, citing data from China Railway Shanghai Group. The annual 40-day travel rush is expected to witness 103 million passenger trips on this railway, a 4-percent increase compared to 2025.

The Yangtze River Delta region, which covers Shanghai Municipality and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui, all in east China, is one of China's most economically dynamic, open and innovative areas, playing a key role in national development and driving high transportation demand.

During the 2026 Spring Festival travel rush, the number of passengers transported by the national railway system is expected to exceed 539 million, which would be a 5 percent increase compared with 2025, according to a forecast by China's state railway operator on Sunday.

The start of winter vacation usually coincides with the peak period for Spring Festival travel bookings, which has significantly boosted travel enthusiasm.

According to data from online travel platform Qunar, as of January 14th, hotel bookings in popular cities during the Spring Festival increased by 70 percent, year-on-year.

Inbound and outbound tourism are also booming. During the winter vacation and Spring Festival, Chinese tourists booked hotels in more than 3,000 cities around the world on the Qunar platform. Hotel bookings in Turkey, a newly added visa-free country, surged 2.3 times year-on-year.

During the Spring Festival, the number of domestic flight tickets purchased by tourists from Argentina increased 9 times year-on-year, and bookings by tourists from European countries such as the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom also increased by more than 2 times.

Global Times