China's holiday spending up; services slow

May day spending lags pre-Covid levels

- CASEY HALL LIANGPING GAO

Chinese travellers' spending rose 8% year-on-year during the May Day holiday to 180.27 billion yuan ($24.92 billion), but was still off pre-pandemic levels, while the country's services activity expanded at the slowest pace in seven months in April.

The May Day holiday, one of the country’s longest, is closely watched as a barometer of Chinese consumer confidence.

Consumption in the world’s second-largest economy has suffered amid sputtering growth and a prolonged property crisis, and the fallout from the US-China trade war is set to deepen the pain.

China's tourism ministry recorded 314 million domestic trips during the holiday, an increase of 6.5%, while the number of transactions using Weixin Pay, a popular payments app, rose by more than 10% year-on-year, with a notable increase in restaurant spending.

During the five day holiday, 10.9 million people entered and exited the country, an increase of 28.7% compared with 2024. Of this total 1.1 million were foreigners, up a sharp 43.1%, the official Xinhua news agency said.

But total spending per head over the five-day May holiday period, a typically busy time for family travel, rose just 1.5% to 574.1 yuan, Reuters calculations based on official data showed.