Spring Festival Consumption Booms, Showing Vitality of China’s Super-Large-Scale Market

The Spring Festival market is an important window to observe China’s super-large-scale market. During the festival, the consumer market was filled with a strong festive atmosphere, bustling with people and new formats. Impressive data and vivid scenes have vividly demonstrated the vigorous vitality and huge advantages of China’s super-large-scale market, as well as the solid foundation and strong resilience of China’s economic development.

The festive atmosphere is a reflection of market vitality. From food on the dining table to cultural and tourism trips, from offline markets to online shopping, the market thrived in multiple areas, further consolidating the volume advantage of the super-large-scale market. Shopping malls and fairs saw brisk supply and demand: consumption vouchers were issued in some regions, and merchants launched various promotional activities to stimulate residents’ consumption enthusiasm. Historical and cultural blocks held Spring Festival activities, attracting an average of over 79,000 visitors per day during the holiday.

Nine departments jointly launched the "Happy Shopping Spring Festival" special activity, encouraging catering enterprises to offer New Year’s Eve dinner packages and supporting pedestrian streets and rural areas to hold special fairs. The 2026 National Online Spring Festival Shopping Festival was also launched before the festival, with hundreds of activities igniting the consumption upsurge. New forms such as online exhibitions, live streaming promotions and digital interactive experiences were widely used, forming an integrated online-offline consumption matrix. Instant retail services expanded their coverage to better meet local immediate needs during the festival.

Cultural and tourism consumption was also booming. Data showed that people traveled further during the holiday, with an average of 2.2 cities visited per person. Cross-city taxi orders in third-tier and lower cities increased by 95% compared with usual days, and searches for "reverse Spring Festival travel" surged by 45 times year-on-year, continuously expanding the boundary of the super-large-scale market.

Technology has become a new highlight of Spring Festival consumption, with increasing adaptability between supply and demand. Modern industrial systems were used to meet the demand for intelligent, healthy and high-quality consumption, launching new products, services and scenarios. Intelligent products became popular "New Year goods", including AI interactive products, smart wearables and intelligent cleaning appliances. Searches for "robots" increased by 25 times year-on-year, and sales of AI-related products doubled.

Green consumption continued to heat up with more abundant supply of green products such as new energy vehicles and energy-saving home appliances. Sales of water-saving bathroom appliances on key platforms increased by 23.2% year-on-year. The second-hand goods trade also boomed, with sales of second-hand watches surging by 218% and second-hand bags by 84%. Health consumption also gained popularity, with searches for blood glucose meters and moxibustion products increasing significantly.

The booming Spring Festival consumption was supported by precise policies. Adopting a "policy + activity" dual-drive model, relevant departments rolled out three major policy incentives: trade-in programs, lottery tickets for invoices with a total bonus of over 1 billion yuan in pilot cities, and financial support covering multiple consumption scenarios. By February 23, the 2026 trade-in program had benefited 31.127 million people and driven sales of 207.03 billion yuan. During the holiday, the average daily sales of key retail and catering enterprises increased by 5.7% year-on-year, and passenger flow and turnover of 78 key pedestrian streets rose by 6.7% and 7.5% respectively.

China’s super-large-scale market is also opening its doors to the world. During the Spring Festival, the strong festive atmosphere attracted global tourists, with 17.796 million Chinese and foreign passengers inspected at border checkpoints. Among them, 1.313 million were foreigners, an average daily increase of 21.8% year-on-year, and 460,000 entered China under the visa-free policy, an average daily increase of 28.5%.

As the first year of the "14th Five-Year Plan" draws to a start, Spring Festival consumption has achieved a "good start". With the continuous advancement of consumption upgrading, improved supply quality and wider opening-up, the advantages of China’s super-large-scale market will become more prominent, injecting strong momentum into Chinese modernization and making greater contributions to global development.