During the Spring Festival of 2026, the growth in travel demonstrated resilience, aligning with market expectations, with 'long-distance travel' and 'family-oriented trips' as key themes; offline consumption growth saw a boost both month-over-month and year-over-year, while online consumption remained lackluster.
According to Zhitong Finance APP, CMB International released a research report stating that tourism growth during the Spring Festival of 2026 demonstrated resilience and met market expectations, with "long-distance travel" and "family-oriented travel" as the two key themes. In terms of offline consumption, the average daily sales revenue of key retail and catering enterprises nationwide during the Spring Festival increased by 5.7% compared to the same period in 2025, accelerating by 1.6 percentage points compared to the Spring Festival holiday last year. Regarding online consumption, the Spring Festival is a relatively slow-moving season for beauty brands compared to events like 618 and Double Eleven, with significant differentiation among brand performances; influenced by a shift in marketing focus to offline channels and a high base from the same period last year, overall sales of gold and jewelry were relatively weak, with this trend extending to lower-tier markets while benefiting more mass-market brands significantly.
The main viewpoints of CMB International are as follows:
Tourism: Growth shows resilience and aligns with market expectations, with "long-distance travel" and "family-oriented travel" as key themes.
According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, during the Spring Festival holiday (February 15, 2026, to February 23, 2026), there were 596 million domestic tourist trips nationwide, with total tourism spending reaching 803.483 billion yuan, equivalent to year-on-year growth of 5.7% in daily tourist trips and 5.5% in daily tourism spending (compared to the Spring Festival in 2025: +5.7%/7.0%).
Data from Mafengwo shows that as of February 22 (the sixth day of the Lunar New Year), long-distance travel orders lasting five days or more accounted for 59.6% of bookings during the Spring Festival, with an average trip duration of 6.4 days, up by 0.5 days year-over-year. Fliggy platform data indicates that domestic travel order volume during the Spring Festival holiday grew by 80% year-over-year, with an approximate 10% increase in average booking amounts per person. For international long-haul travel, data from the National Immigration Administration shows that border inspection agencies handled an average daily increase of 10.1% in entry and exit travelers during the Spring Festival holiday compared to the same period last year.
Regarding "family-oriented travel," Mafengwo data reveals that family and parent-child groups accounted for 68% of bookings on its platform, with "three-generation travel" making up 34%, becoming the core customer segment for Spring Festival travel. According to Meituan data, bookings for parent-child tickets during the Spring Festival increased by 76% year-over-year, while families visiting multiple cities grew by 50% year-over-year.
Offline Consumption: Growth rates improved both sequentially and year-over-year.
According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, the average daily sales revenue of key retail and catering enterprises nationwide during the Spring Festival grew by 5.7% compared to the same period in 2025, accelerating by 1.6 percentage points compared to the Spring Festival holiday last year and surpassing the 2.7% growth during the National Day holiday in 2025; foot traffic and turnover at 78 key pedestrian streets (commercial districts) grew by 6.7% and 7.5% year-over-year, respectively (National Day holiday in 2025: +8.8/6.0%), with turnover growth accelerating compared to the National Day holiday.
Online Consumption: Brand marketing efforts were significantly weaker than those during 618 and Double Eleven, resulting in subdued sales performance.
1) Beauty and skincare: According to Chanmama data, during the 2026 Spring Festival holiday, the combined sales revenue range of key brands on Douyin's platform increased from last year’s 212 million–348 million yuan to this year’s 250 million–378 million yuan, representing year-over-year growth of approximately 12.0%; calculating average daily sales based on the midpoint of the range shows a year-over-year decrease of 0.4%, remaining largely flat.
Compared to the 618 and Double 11 shopping festivals, the Spring Festival holiday is a relatively slow season for beauty and skincare brands in terms of sales performance, with significant differentiation across brands. Mao Geping: Sales revenue increased by 114.3% year-on-year, primarily benefiting from its category expansion strategy and the low base effect on the Douyin platform; Proya: Sales revenue increased by 58.6% year-on-year, driven by strong performances from its main brand Proya, OR, and Original Color Bota; Lin Qingxuan: Increased by 42.7% year-on-year, potentially due to active marketing efforts; Beitaeni: Sales revenue grew by approximately 7.7% year-on-year; S’Young Group: Sales revenue increased by 6.4% year-on-year, supported by the steady market performance of its main brand Hanshu and robust contributions from sub-brands such as Anminyou and Yiyeh. The divergence in monetization among these brands further confirms the effectiveness of building differentiated, multi-brand portfolios to capture niche market opportunities.
Gold and jewelry: Affected by the shift in brand marketing focus towards offline channels and high base effects from the same period last year, overall sales performance was relatively weak. According to monitoring data from the Chanmama platform, total sales revenue for key brands fell from the range of 285 million to 390 million yuan during the Spring Festival holiday in 2025 to 260 million to 309 million yuan in 2026, representing an 8.5% year-on-year decline, or a 25.1% drop based on daily averages. This decline was mainly due to heightened consumer sentiment amid strong expectations of rising gold prices during the same period in 2025, which created a high sales base. Additionally, entering 2026, factors such as geopolitical tensions caused sharp fluctuations in gold prices at high levels, suppressing terminal consumption willingness. Particularly, a pullback in gold prices from their peak in late January triggered short-term market panic, further weakening consumer purchasing power for high-value luxury items like gold.
Significant differentiation can be observed at the brand level: In the 2025 Spring Festival gold consumption boom, mass-market brands that benefited significantly from the trend extending to lower-tier markets, such as Chao Hong Ji, Zhou Liu Fu, and China Gold, all experienced noticeable declines in 2026, with year-on-year growth rates of -72.0%, -53.3%, and -12.5%, respectively. In contrast, brands such as Chow Sang Sang, Lukfook Jewellery, Chow Tai Fook, and Chow Tai Seng, operating on relatively normal bases, achieved solid growth with year-on-year increases of 100.0%, 66.7%, 66.7%, and 14.3%, respectively.
Investment advice
We remain optimistic about service-oriented consumption and emotional spending related to enhancing external appearances and self-pleasure themes. For travel-related sectors, we recommend paying attention to Trip.com (TCOM.US) and Tongcheng Travel (00780); for beauty and skincare, we suggest focusing on Yingtong Holdings (06883), whose category portfolio is superior to industry peers.
