China National Day Holiday Spending Fell Amid Tighter Covid-19 Controls
China’s Covid-19 restrictions continued to damp the nation’s consumption, with spending falling in the weeklong holidays, official data showed.
Travelers in China made 422 million trips during the National Day holiday period starting Oct. 1, down 18.2% from the same period a year earlier and 60.7% of 2019 level–before pandemic hit, data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism showed.
Tourism revenue fell 26.2% on year to 287.21 billion yuan ($40.35 billion) during the holidays, just 44.2% of the 2019 level, according to the official data released on Friday.
China’s box office also plunged–to CNY1.5 billion, down 65.9% from the same period a year ago, according to Maoyan Entertainment, an online ticket service platform. The result was the lowest box office for the National Day holiday since 2014, according to OCBC Bank.
The bleak consumption during traditional peak spending season had been anticipated after the government introduced tougher travel restrictions to prevent the spread of Covid-19 ahead of the Communist Party’s Congress set to kick off on Sunday.
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