Travellers wait for their train as the annual Spring Festival travel rush starts ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year, at Beijing Railway Station in Beijing, China January 14, 2025. - Reuters
BEIJING: As the Spring Festival draws near, Chinese travelers packed into cars, trains and planes on Tuesday (Jan 14), kicking off the landmark chunyun, the world's largest annual human migration.
Chinese authorities expect an unprecedented 9 billion inter-regional trips during this year's chunyun, or Spring Festival travel rush. The 40-day travel period began on Tuesday and will continue through Feb. 22.
More electric car owners and foreign tourists are expected to join the annual travel frenzy, traditionally featuring millions of migrant workers and others living far from their hometowns who head back to reunite with family and celebrate China's most important festival.
This year, road trips are expected to dominate the annual travel rush, accounting for about 80 per cent of all inter-regional journeys. An estimated 7.2 billion road trips are projected, with highways likely to experience record-breaking single-day traffic peaks.
The rise of carpooling has also become evident on Chinese social media platforms. On the Xiaohongshu lifestyle app, posts marked with the hashtag "carpooling home for Spring Festival" have garnered over 5.6 million views and nearly 180,000 comments.
New energy vehicles (NEVs) are set to be a key feature of this year's homeward journeys. As of November 2024, a total of 33,100 charging stations have been installed across the country's highway service areas, with 97 per cent of these areas now equipped with charging facilities, according to Gao Bo, an official of the Ministry of Transport.
To accommodate the travel surge, highway service areas are promoting ultrafast charging stations, optimising placement based on traffic volume, and introducing intelligent solutions such as charging robots, Gao said.
China's railway and civil aviation authorities have also increased travel capacities to ensure smoother transportation.
Over 510 million passenger trips will be handled by the country's railways during the period, with an average of 12.75 million trips daily, an increase of 5.5 per cent compared with the previous year. About 10.3 million train trips are expected to be made on Tuesday.
China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. plans to operate more than 14,000 passenger trains daily, providing an additional 500,000 seats per day. Ahead of the Spring Festival travel rush, a total of 185 new Fuxing bullet trains have been put into service nationwide, capable of reaching speeds of up to 350 kilometers per hour.
On Tuesday, Shenyang railway station was abuzz with activity as travelers bustled through the halls, many rolling suitcases and some laden with gifts for family reunions.
"Although it is only the first day of the Spring Festival travel rush, the daily passenger flow has already hit 53,000," said Cai Jiakun, who works at the railway station.
Meanwhile, China's civil aviation sector is set to handle a record of 90 million passenger trips during the holiday travel season. The sector will operate an average of 18,500 flights per day, an 8.4 per cent increase from 2024.
This year marks the first Spring Festival travel rush since the Lunar New Year was added to UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list, as well as the first with an extended eight-day Spring Festival holiday.
"The combined effect of these factors will further stimulate demand for travels related to family reunions and tourism," said Yang Zhusong, an associate researcher at Tsinghua University.
In the city of Wuhan, a key transport hub in central China, the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport is expected to handle 3.76 million passenger trips during the holiday travel rush, up 14.6 per cent year on year.
"Ice and snow destinations such as Harbin, Changchun and Shenyang, as well as sunny coastal locations like Haikou, Sanya, Hong Kong and Singapore, are the most popular routes from Wuhan," said Wu Chengkai, deputy general manager of the airport.
Online travel giant Ctrip reported a 51-per cent year-on-year increase in searches for overseas trips ahead of chunyun. Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia emerged as the top destinations. Searches for Japan and South Korea more than doubled from last year.
Interest in long-haul travel is also growing, with searches for destinations in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America increasing by more than 50 per cent.
The Spring Festival is also seeing an increase in foreign visitors, with travel orders from international tourists surging by 203 per cent compared to the same period of 2024, partially thanks to China's expansion of its visa-free transit policy to permit eligible foreign travelers to stay in the country for 240 hours.
An improved payment environment, bilingual signage and various other supports have enhanced the convenience of traveling in China for foreign tourists. The 12306 China Railway online ticketing platform, now accessible to international users, enables them to explore both bustling urban centers and remote destinations with ease.
For Liu Limei, a professor at the Inner Mongolia University of Finance and Economics, the significance of chunyun goes beyond the journey itself. "Amid the 9 billion journeys being made, we see the advancements in transportation, the growth of the economy, a longing for home and a yearning for a better life." - Xinhua
