Source: Wind

Retaliatory consumption is coming.

During the Spring Festival, 308 million domestic trips have returned to 88.6% in the same period in 2019! Cross-border tourism has skyrocketed, and film consumption has rebounded strongly.

Recently, the chief economist of several foreign banking groups predicted that China's economy will accelerate the pace of recovery in 2023, and the national GDP growth rate is expected to reach about 5%.

Travel orders quadrupled year-on-year

On January 28, the first working day after the Spring Festival of the year of the Rabbit, the news of "308 million domestic travel trips during the Spring Festival holiday, returning to 88.6% in the same period in 2019 before the epidemic," was posted on Weibo Corp's hot search.

According to estimates released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on the 27th, according to the data center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 308 million domestic tourists traveled during the Spring Festival holiday this year, an increase of 23.1 percent over the same period last year, returning to 88.6 percent in the same period in 2019. Domestic tourism revenue reached 375.843 billion yuan, an increase of 30 percent over the same period last year, returning to 73.1 percent in the same period in 2019.

According to incomplete statistics, 1281 A-level tourist scenic spots are opened free of charge during the Spring Festival, accounting for 9% of the total number of A-level tourist scenic spots in the country, of which 62 5A-level tourist scenic spots are ticket-free. During the Spring Festival holiday, there were more than 9400 commercial performances nationwide, an increase of 40.92 percent over the same period in 2022 and 22.5 percent over 2019.

Travel orders at home and abroad reached their peak in nearly three years during the Spring Festival, with an overall four-fold increase compared with the Spring Festival in 2022, according to Trip.com platform data.

The number of tourists in many scenic spots has exploded. According to the same trip data, hotel bookings in the four traditional popular tourist cities of Xishuangbanna, Kunming, Lijiang and Dali in Yunnan have all increased more than five times year on year. Flying pig data also show that the turnover of holiday goods in Yunnan has increased by more than 14 times, and orders for holiday goods in Hainan during the Spring Festival have increased by 24% compared with the same period last year.

Trip.com data also shows that cross-provincial hotel bookings account for nearly 70%, with bookings exceeding the Spring Festival in 2019. According to Alipay, the number of "hotel bookings" searched through Alipay increased six times year-on-year, hotel consumption expenditure increased by 80%, and hotel consumption in popular tourist cities in Yunnan, Tibet, Guangdong, Shaanxi and Fujian all increased by more than 200%.

According to the Civil Aviation Administration, civil aviation is expected to transport 73 million passengers during the 2023 Spring Festival, an increase of 12 percent over the same period last year, the highest growth rate in nearly five years. The outbreak of outbound travel has become one of the highlights of this year's civil aviation Spring Festival travel. Orders for goods related to outbound travel in 33 countries and regions on the Flying Pig platform have more than doubled compared with the same period last year, including Thailand, Maldives and New Zealand.

The film market recovers

As of the evening of January 27, the total box office for the 2023 Spring Festival was 6.724 billion yuan, ranking second in Chinese film history and surpassing the total score of 6.049 billion yuan for the 2022 Spring Festival, according to Maoyan Professional Edition.

During the Spring Festival in 2023, the total number of people is 128 million, the total number of shows is 2.646 million, and the average ticket price is 52.4yuan. A total of two films grossed more than 2 billion at the box office. "Manjianghong" grossed a total of 2.592 billion yuan, making it the No. 1 box office for the Spring Festival.

This year's Spring Festival presents a pattern of "two super and more strong". "Man Jiang Hong" and "wandering the Earth 2" take the lead in the Spring Festival stalls with 2.64 billion and 2.19 billion faults, contributing about 60% of the box office of the Spring Festival stalls. In addition, "Bear haunts me" and "Bear Core" grossed 760 million at the box office.

A number of data show that consumption is picking up

According to VAT invoice data released by the State Administration of Taxation, during the Spring Festival holiday, the sales income of the country's consumption-related industries increased by 12.2% compared with last year's Spring Festival holiday, with an average annual increase of 12.4% over the 2019 Spring Festival holiday. Among them, consumption of goods and services increased by 10% and 13.5% respectively over the same period last year, with an average annual increase of 13.1% and 8.1% respectively over the 2019 Spring Festival holiday. The consumption of daily necessities, upgraded household goods and tourism services has increased rapidly.

Data released by a number of third-party agencies also show a pick-up in consumption.

On January 27, Alipay released the observation of Spring Festival consumption in 2023. During the Spring Festival holiday up to January 25, 2023, the economy of small towns, family outings, shopping, cross-border tours and slow live streaming of scenic spots have all become popular, and consumption has doubled.

According to Alipay data, Hangzhou Hubin Yintai in77, Hangzhou Wulin Business District, Changsha Wuyi Square, Changsha Pozi Street, Xiamen Zhongshan Road Zhonghua City, Changsha Duzheng Street, Chongqing Jiefangbei, Chongqing Mountain Lane, Nanjing Confucius Temple, Nanjing Xinjiekou and other well-known business circles are unusually hot, with consumption growth ranking among the top 10 in the country, of which Changsha occupies three seats alone.

On the same day, JD.com released "consumption trend during the 2023 Spring Festival Holiday", which shows that with the continuous expansion of cities with "Spring Festival delivery", consumers' shopping categories during the Spring Festival are more diversified and more "everyday" besides the festive flavor. The proportion of turnover in mobile communications, household appliances and health care has increased significantly.

The upgrading of service consumption is more obvious. During the Spring Festival, the turnover of life services increased by 302% compared with the same period last year in the lunar calendar; the sales of "Rabbit" theme jewelry increased by more than 10 times year-on-year; the overall sales of gift boxes increased by more than 50% over the same period last year; the turnover of prepared vegetables increased by more than 6 times compared with the same period last year; the growth potential of the low-line market is full, and the proportion of turnover in the past three years has increased year by year. "immediate consumption" has become the mainstream choice of more and more consumers, and JD.com 's hourly sales have increased by more than 90% compared with the same period last year.

According to the Spring Festival consumption data released by Meituan in 2023, the average daily consumption increased by 66% in the first six days of the holiday compared with the Spring Festival in 2019, with consumption in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Chongqing and Guangzhou among the highest in the country, and consumption in other places increased by 76% over the same period last year.

Many foreign banks are optimistic about China's economy.

Recently, a number of foreign banking groups have made macroeconomic prospects for 2023, according to brokerage China. Among them, several chief economists predict that China's economy will accelerate the pace of recovery in 2023, and the national GDP growth rate is expected to reach about 5%.

Overall, economic restart will be a key theme in 2023 and 2024, driving China's GDP growth to 5 per cent and 5.8 per cent respectively, said Liu Jing, chief economist at HSBC Global Research Greater China.

Consumption will rise sharply as confidence improves and pent-up demand is released, supported by an improving labour market, a stabilising housing market and excess savings.

HSBC also pointed out that under the influence of uncertainty, people accumulated excess savings during the outbreak. "We expect excess savings accumulated during the epidemic to reach about 6.55 trillion yuan, accounting for about 5.4 per cent of nominal GDP. These savings will support the release of previously pent-up demand in 2023.

It is widely expected that China will introduce more policy measures to stimulate consumption in the future to promote consumption growth to return to pre-epidemic levels by 2023.

The policy of stabilizing growth will also promote the stabilization of the real estate market and boost investment. Standard Chartered also believes that existing monetary and fiscal stimulus measures are more effective, while government measures to support the property market will also help reduce some of the downside risks. Economic restart will push the consumer price index and producer price index to rise moderately again, but they are still under control.

"the recovery in consumption this year may not necessarily have the V-shaped rebound seen in mid-2020, as companies and individuals need to repair their balance sheets and it will take some time for income and willingness to spend to recover." Wang Tao, chief China economist and head of Asian economics at UBS, also said that the savings rate of Chinese residents has been rising in recent years, which could become the momentum of consumption recovery after the lifting of travel restrictions.

HSBC noted that adequate policy support would further promote a potential recovery in consumption and a stabilisation of the property market, which would help China's GDP growth reach 5 per cent in 2023.

Edit / irisz