Tourists are seen at the Qianmen pedestrian street in Beijing on May 1, 2025. Photo: Chen Tao/GT

China's five-day May Day holiday officially kicked off on Friday, as the nation's transport authorities predicted peak passenger flows across railways, highways, civil aviation and waterways nationwide on the first day of the holiday, while consumption in culture, tourism and film sectors also showed strong momentum.

On the morning of May 1, Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station was crowded with travelers. Staff at information desks patiently answered inquiries, while passengers queued in an orderly manner with suitcases, taking high-speed trains to various destinations. 

In Beijing, major attractions including the Summer Palace, the Bell and Drum Towers, Wangfujing pedestrian street and Qianmen pedestrian street saw surging visitor numbers, with tourists from home and abroad experiencing local snacks and traditional attire, and capturing moments through selfies, according to observation by the Global Times reporters. 

Jiang Yiyi, a tourism and sports expert at Beijing Sport University, told the Global Times on Friday that on the one hand, the growth in holiday consumption is built on the continued improvement of the overall domestic economy; on the other hand, efforts across regions to innovate cultural and tourism products, create new consumption scenarios and improve service quality have jointly supported the sustained recovery of the May Day holiday tourism market.

Surging momentum 

The Ministry of Transport forecast that on the first day of the holiday, the national railway network would handle 24.8 million passenger trips, with 2,070 additional trains scheduled. Highway traffic on Friday is expected to reach 70 million vehicle trips, hitting a single day new record for the May Day holiday, according to China National Radio. As in previous years, tolls are waived for small passenger vehicles with seven seats or fewer on toll roads during the holiday.

Waterway passenger traffic nationwide is expected to reach 1.73 million on Friday, up 4.9 percent year-on-year, while the transport volume of new energy vehicles across the Qiongzhou Strait is projected to rise 60 percent year-on-year. Civil aviation is expected to handle around 2.3 million passenger trips on May 1, said the media reports. 

Chinese online travel agency Qunar said in a statement that most travelers chose to depart on May 1. Hotel bookings in long-haul destinations such as Southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region posted the fastest growth compared with last year. 

In addition, large-scale entertainment events have also boosted tourism consumption. A concert by Chinese comedian Yue Yunpeng drove hotel bookings around Guangzhou Baoneng Performing Arts Center up 7.9 times during the holiday, the highest growth among the commercial areas nationwide, while concerts by rock band Mayday from the Taiwan island made Beijing's National Stadium - the Bird's Nest - the second most popular hotel booking for commercial areas during the holiday, with bookings rising 91 percent, according to Qunar.

Provincial football leagues across the country have also remained highly popular. Qunar data showed that on May 1, Jiangsu ranked second nationwide in hotel bookings with the Jiangsu Football City League - "Su Super League," also known as Suchao. Meanwhile, boosted by a similar football league in Central China's Hubei Province, Wuhan entered the national top 10 for hotel bookings, per data by Qunar. 

Movie box office for the May Day holiday is gaining momentum as box office tracking site Maoyan reported that the total box office for the holiday has surpassed 100 million yuan on Friday afternoon.

Crime thriller Cold War 1994 and suspense thriller Vanishing Point are leading in the box office chart with over 15 million yuan each. Hollywood blockbuster The Devil Wears Prada 2 is also a strong contender during the crowded holiday film season as a total of 12 films are hitting the screens during the May Day holiday.

Upbeat economic data 

What lies behind the robust tourism and leisure consumption potential is China's upbeat economic figures at the beginning of 2026.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that in the first quarter, the value added of the service sector grew 5.2 percent year-on-year, while that of accommodation and catering rose 4.3 percent. Total retail sales of consumer goods reached 12.7695 trillion yuan, up 2.4 percent year-on-year, with relatively fast growth in retail sales of tourism-related leasing services and culture, sports and leisure services.

Although the service sector's prosperity index declined in April, market expectations remained positive, with the business activity expectation index rising 0.6 percentage points from the previous month to 55.4 percent, staying in a relatively high expansion range above 55 percent, indicating improved confidence among service enterprises, said NBS chief statistician Huo Lihui. 

The national conference on the service sector, which was held in early April this year in Beijing, has sent a clear signal that China will promote a high-quality service sector driven by demand, reform, technology and global cooperation, to meet its own development goals and foster inclusive growth, the Xinhua News Agency reported on April 9.

Jiang said that the strong holiday consumption is underpinned by a solid domestic economic recovery and expected growth in the service sector, while the conference has also encouraged localities to roll out supportive measures to promote the integrated development of culture, commerce, tourism and sports.