Passenger flow heats up on the first day of Mid-Autumn Festival: domestic flight bookings up over 60%, long-haul travelers chase autumn early

On the first day of the Mid-Autumn Festival mini-holiday, some long-haul travelers originally scheduled to depart during the National Day holiday set off early, overlapping with returning-home visits and nearby micro-vacations, converging on the roads. Data from railways, accommodation and online travel platforms show that domestic flight bookings on September 25 rose more than 60% year on year, and Shanghai Railway Station welcomed its peak holiday passenger flow; at the same time, demand for autumn foliage viewing, nearby trips and county-level tourism also heated up in tandem. From the aviation market perspective, the extra-long holiday is driving the early release of some long-haul passenger flow. Data from Qunar shows that domestic flight bookings on September 25, the first day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, rose more than 60% year on year, while searches for keywords related to "Mid-Autumn moon viewing" and "autumn foliage trips" this week increased 3.1 times from the previous week. TONGCHENGTRAVEL data shows that long-haul flight orders of more than 1,200 kilometers on September 25 increased 46% compared with the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival, with domestic routes mainly flowing to autumn-color belts such as Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Yunnan, Guizhou and Gansu, and cross-border routes mainly to destinations in Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Europe. "Chasing autumn" has become a popular theme for long-haul travel. Qunar data shows that searches for "autumn-chasing routes" on the first day of the Mid-Autumn Festival rose 170% week on week, while flight bookings to destinations such as Altay, Xilinhot, Nyingchi and Dali all doubled. Among them, flight bookings from Guangzhou to Lanzhou rose 2.1 times year on year, and those from Hangzhou to Urumqi increased 1.6 times. Airlines are also increasing capacity for the holiday. Data for the Shanghai region from China Southern Airlines (600029.SH) shows that from September 25 to October 8, China Southern plans to operate 2,875 flights at Shanghai Hongqiao and Pudong airports, offering nearly 600,000 seats, and will add flights on popular routes such as Shanghai round trips to Guiyang, Jieyang and Wuhan. At present, the load factor on some domestic flights departing Shanghai for Jieyang, Nanning, Dalian, Zhengzhou, Guangzhou, Kashgar, Urumqi, Haikou and Beijing Daxing, as well as some international and regional flights to Tokyo, Seoul and Ho Chi Minh City, has exceeded 80%. Railway passenger flow also hit its first-day holiday peak. Shanghai Railway Station disclosed that it is expected to send 746,000 passengers on September 25, including 182,000 from Shanghai Station, 106,000 from Shanghai South Station, 399,000 from Shanghai Hongqiao Station and 48,000 from Shanghai Songjiang Station. On that day, Shanghai Railway Station plans to add 59 passenger trains. While long-haul travel heated up, returning home to visit relatives and nearby vacations also became important ways to travel on the first day of the Mid-Autumn Festival. TONGCHENGTRAVEL data shows that cross-city travel orders departing on the day before and the first day of the Mid-Autumn Festival increased 18% compared with the same period of the Dragon Boat Festival; on September 25, the first day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, bookings for local and nearby trips accounted for more than 60%, and ticket bookings for nearby scenic spots rose 36% compared with the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival. Chinese-style night tourism destinations such as Shanghai Yuyuan Garden, Nanjing Qinhuai River, Xi'an Grand Tang Mall, Suzhou Pingjiang Road and Chongqing Hongya Cave ranked among the top in search popularity. Demand for nearby trips among local users in Shanghai also grew. TONGCHENGTRAVEL data shows that the top five popular source markets for out-of-province travel by Shanghai users are Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Beijing, Guangdong and Anhui; on the first day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, bookings for nearby hotels by Shanghai users rose 31% compared with the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival, and bookings for nearby scenic spot tickets increased 49%. At the same time, tourism consumption extended to small cities and county-level destinations. Qunar data shows that on the first day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, hotel check-ins for "seeking flavors in small cities" rose more than 5 times year on year, with Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan, Burqin in Xinjiang, Wuyuan in Jiangxi, Antu in Jilin and Anji in Zhejiang becoming popular small cities for autumn foliage viewing. Data from Huazhu Group (01179) shows that as of September 21, hotel room nights booked for the period from September 25 to October 7 rose 22% year on year, with third- and fourth-tier destinations such as Luoyang, Yangzhou, Guilin and Yanbian, as well as multiple county-level destinations, entering the top ranks of accommodation booking popularity. Judging from market performance on the first day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, some long-haul tourists started their trips early due to the "ask for 3 days off, get 13 days off" arrangement, and air and railway passenger flow reached peaks; at the same time, demand for returning home to visit relatives, nearby vacations and county-level tourism was released simultaneously, with rising popularity in segmented scenarios such as autumn foliage viewing, seeking flavors in small cities and Chinese-style night tourism. As the National Day holiday approaches, travel demand in the tourism market will further be released. This article is reprinted from "Cailian Press", GMTEight editor: Jiang Yuanhua.