Chinese travelers demonstrated resilient spending power during the 2025 Dragon Boat Festival holiday, with average travel expenses rising 8.8 percent year-on-year despite ongoing concerns about the country’s economic slowdown.
This is according to data released by Fliggy, Alibaba Group’s wholly-owned online travel platform.
According to Fliggy, international destinations remain popular, with short-haul destinations under four hours’ flight time proving most popular. The top international destinations included Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong SAR, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, France, Indonesia, and the United States.
Of the Asia destinations, South Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore currently offer casino gaming options, while Macau is located just an hour from Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, domestic travel bookings showed robust growth across multiple categories. Customized tour bookings surged over 50 percent year-on-year, while domestic hotel packages combining accommodation with entertainment and dining options grew by 20 percent.
Theme parks and resorts emerged as primary destinations for family travelers during the holiday period. Ticket sales for major attractions and theme parks increased 25 percent year-on-year on the first day of the holiday, while comprehensive packages including dining and entertainment experienced a remarkable 140 percent surge in bookings.
Similar resilient travel patterns were also observed in Macau during the Dragon Boat Festival. Macau recorded 390,422 visitor arrivals during the three-day Chinese mainland holiday period from May 31st to June 2nd, marking a 13.9 percent increase from the comparable period in 2024 when the festival ran from June 8th to 10th.
