Economic Recovery Sluggish... Chinese Open Wallets for Leisure Activities

Spring Festival Tourism Demand Surges... New Movie Hits Big
Prices Continue to Fall, Raising Deflation Warning

China's economic recovery continues to fall short of expectations, but Chinese consumers' wallets are wide open for 'entertainment' spending this year. Following an explosive surge in tourism demand during the Spring Festival period, box office revenues have also soared to unprecedented levels.

According to the state-run Global Times (GT) on the 12th, travel platform Qunar reported that airline ticket bookings from the second day of the holiday, the 11th, through the 14th, increased by 60% compared to the previous year. Hotel reservations in popular tourist destinations such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen rose by 50% year-on-year, while cities like Nanjing, Wuhan, and Suzhou saw increases of over 30%. Based on booking trends, Qunar expects the number of Spring Festival tourists this year to reach an all-time high.

[Image source= Xinhua News Agency]

International travel platform Trip.com reported that as of the start of the Spring Festival holiday (February 10-17) on the 10th, ticket bookings for tourist attractions across China increased by more than 300% compared to the previous year. Related figures showed that travel orders rose by 102%, and airport pickup orders increased by 75% during the same period.

Box office performance is also remarkable. "YOLO," directed and starring female filmmaker Jialing, who attracted attention by losing 50kg for the film shoot, has rapidly become a hot topic. The animation "Boonie Bears: The Wild Life" and director Zhang Yimou's "Article 20" also remained among the top ranks at the box office.

According to Chinese box office analysis platform Maoyan, the box office revenue for February (as of the 11th) reached 4.31 billion yuan (approximately 792 billion KRW), temporarily ranking first as the largest single market globally. During the same period, the North American box office was recorded at 575 million USD (approximately 764.2 billion KRW). According to Shanghai Securities News, eight new films were released on the first day of the Spring Festival, the 10th, achieving box office earnings of 2 billion yuan.

However, China's overall consumer market has yet to recover. The National Bureau of Statistics recently announced that China's Consumer Price Index (CPI) for January fell by 0.8% year-on-year. This decline not only underperformed the previous month's figure (-0.3%) and the forecast (-0.5%) but also marked the largest drop since 2009. China's CPI has recorded negative growth for four consecutive months since last October (-0.2%) due to weak demand. The Producer Price Index (PPI) also fell by 2.5% year-on-year, marking 16 consecutive months of negative growth.

Morgan Stanley recently conducted a consumer survey in China (December 2023), with 76% of respondents reporting that they had reduced spending in at least one category over the past six months. Only 45% of respondents expected household finances to improve over the next six months, the lowest level in the past 12 months.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.