By Sophie Yu and Brenda Goh
BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) -Chinese holidaymakers’ average spending dipped to a three-year-low over this year’s eight-day Golden Week holiday, dashing hopes that a domestic stock market rally would encourage cautious consumers to open their wallets.
Weak consumption has weighed on the world’s second-largest economy this year as policymakers navigate pressure on multiple fronts ranging from U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade policies to extreme weather, excessive competition in the domestic market, and chronic weakness in the property sector.
In China, the Mid-Autumn festival is an important festival for family gatherings and this year it coincided with the National Day holiday, resulting in a longer-than-normal break between October 1 and 8.
Average spending per trip during the holiday this year reached 911.04 yuan ($113.52), down 0.55% from the same period last year, according to Reuters calculations based on government data published on Thursday.
That was the lowest since 2022, when spending fell to 680.6 yuan during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.
A total of 888 million trips were made during the holiday, according to the Culture and Tourism Ministry, compared with 765 million trips over a seven-day break the year before.
Domestic tourism revenue for the holiday period totalled 809 billion yuan, the ministry said, up about 15% from last year.
Citi analysts said in a note published on Wednesday that overall holiday activities were largely back to normal as long-haul travel recovered.
“New growth momentum, however, was muted. And we see little evidence on the ‘wealth effect’ from the equity rally,” they said.
A recent surge in Chinese stocks to decade-high levels had raised hopes of increased consumer spending, but Nomura analysts said earlier this week that the impact of the rally on consumption was likely to be limited for the remainder of the year. Weak demand has persisted as policymakers contend with pressures ranging from the property sector downturn to concerns over job security.
The Chinese box office, which traditionally has been a big winner of such holidays, saw a big decline during the week due to a lack of big blockbusters being released.
The national box office recorded 1.835 billion yuan in earnings, down 12.8% from last year’s seven-day holiday earnings of 2.105 billion yuan.
This year’s earnings also fell by nearly one-third compared with the 2.735 billion yuan generated during the eight-day National Day break in 2023, according to data from the online movie ticketing platform Maoyan.
“I didn’t watch any films this holiday while usually I watch at least one,” said Liu Tao, a Beijing resident in the financial sector. “I drove to Yangzhou with my wife and son. We didn’t have the time. Besides, there is nothing exciting in the cinema, I’d rather watch short videos on my phone, which is free.”
($1 = 7.1262 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Sophie Yu and Brenda Goh; Editing by Kim Coghill and Jacqueline Wong)
