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Official data on domestic travel by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism registered 415 million visits to the country during the holidays, an increase of 7.6% over last year. That's less than a growth of 12.1% in 2018.
Domestic tourism receipts also increased this year, but at a slower pace of 8.2 percent to 513.9 billion yuan (76.4 billion US dollars). In comparison, last year's tourism revenue grew by 12.6% over 2017, according to the data.
The figures for the Spring Festival are correct, especially because of pressures such as the slowdown in the economy, said Xin Chen, tourism badyst at UBS Securities in China, in a telephone interview in Mandarin translated by CNBC . He added that high-end travel has an impact, but that it is limited.
Chen also noted that travel expenses are relatively cheaper than the purchase of luxury goods and that a deterioration of the economy accompanied by an increase in unemployment would be pbaded on to the economy. Tourism figures only six months or a year later. But he thinks the economy could pick up in the second half of this year.
Smaller Chinese cities have also seen rapid growth, both as a source of tourists and destinations, according to a separate report from Ctrip's Chinese travel booking site.
An "unprecedented" enthusiasm for travel from county towns marked the biggest difference between this year and the spring festival of last year, Ctrip said in a report in Mandarin. The company said that the number of tourists from Heshan, Fogang and Huidong counties – all located in the southern province of Guangdong – had grown five or six times a year.
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