On November 12, the State Council issued a decision to amend the "National Holidays and Memorial Days Holiday Regulations", including extending the Spring Festival and May Day holidays by one day each, adjusting and modifying the general work duration to not exceed 6 days before and after statutory holidays.

In fact, the tourism industry has been quickly recovering since the epidemic, and it is still in a high-growth trajectory in 2024. The number of tourists during statutory holidays has basically exceeded the level before the epidemic, and participants have also received positive performance feedback due to industry development.

Marriott International CEO Anthony Capuano stated that the company has reduced its workforce by over 800 employees, yet the business operations and growth remain stable. The number of hotel contracts signed in China reached a record high in the first half of this year, indicating that both public and private real estate developers in China are betting on the long-term development of the travel and sightseeing industry. He further mentioned that domestic travel in China is gradually recovering, and inbound tourism performance in the third quarter has already exceeded pre-pandemic levels. Before the pandemic, around 18% to 19% of the group's total room nights came from cross-border tourism, which has now increased to over 20% by the third quarter. With the recovery of air transportation capacity in the Greater China region, it is expected that this number will continue to rise. Therefore, the group believes that inbound tourism will experience even greater growth.

The outlook for OTA platforms is optimistic. At the beginning of 2024, the China Tourism Academy predicts that the number of domestic tourists in 2024 will exceed 6 billion, a year-on-year increase of 22.7%. The total number of inbound and outbound tourists is expected to exceed 0.26 billion person-times. Based on the data from the first three quarters, the annual tourism data may exceed expectations.

It is expected that the number of tourists in 2025 will continue to grow at a double-digit rate, and the entire tourism industry chain will also benefit from the high growth brought by tourism consumption.

Soochow Securities released a research report stating that based on high residents' willingness to travel and a series of policy initiatives boosting the prosperity of the cultural and tourism industry, OTA platforms will continue to benefit from the high growth of inbound and outbound tourism and the prosperity of the domestic tourism base, with a stable pattern favorable for maintaining the monetization rate of OTA platforms.

Tourism OTA industry-related companies: tongchengtravel (00780), Ctrip Group-S (09961), Travelsky Tech (00696)