May Day holiday shows recovery of tourist confidence and economy

The total number of domestic trips during the just-concluded May Day holiday was 274 million, up 70.83 percent year-on-year, and 119.09 percent over the same period in 2019, generating 148.056 billion yuan ($21.44 billion) in tourism revenue, up 128.90 percent year-on-year, and 100.66 percent over the same period in 2019.

As the first May Day holiday after the optimization of China's pandemic prevention and control policies, it was expected that people's long-suppressed desire to travel will be unleashed, but no one had anticipated it would do so to this extent.

The holiday traffic in a way reflected Chinese people's robust demand for tourism. The outstanding tourism performance during this year's May Day holiday is the result of the upgrading of the domestic tourism sector on the supply side, the improvement of public services, and people's surging tourism demand.

Actually, even before the holiday, many places were improving tourism facilities to meet increased tourist flow. Shexian county in Anhui province's Huangshan city, where the famous Huangshan Mountain is located, and Zibo in Shandong province, which is popular for its barbecue, urged the Party and government organs to open parking lots and toilets for the public free of charge.

Many places even said they will turn increased tourist flow during the May Day holiday into a long-term trend. This is a good way to boost the local tourism sector. Only by improving public services can a region keep attracting tourists all the time.

The explosive growth of tourism during the May Day holiday is also a manifestation of China's economic vitality, especially the vitality of the consumer market. It shows the accelerated recovery of public confidence, which will not only stimulate the growth of service consumption such as tourism, catering and accommodation, but also stimulate the expansion of demand in other industries through the economic multiplier effect, thus promoting the expansion of overall domestic demand and helping the macroeconomic recovery to accelerate.

The May Day boom provides an important opportunity for China to improve market expectations, expand domestic demand and develop internal growth drivers. As long as the country focuses on expanding domestic demand and does what it can do to unleash the huge potential of domestic consumption, the sustainable and steady development of China's economy is certain.