Travel demand to Macau has surged ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, with flight bookings since January 1st rising nearly 40 percent year-on-year, according to figures provided to AGB from Alibaba-owned travel platform Fliggy.
According to the data provided, Macau has emerged as a popular outbound destination for the Spring Festival, with hotel reservations up 57 percent as of January 22nd.
The 2026 Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) holiday in China runs for nine consecutive days, from February 15th (Sunday) to February 23rd (Monday), ushering in the Year of the Horse.
Ticket sales have jumped more than threefold, while tour package bookings have more than doubled compared with the same period last year. Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Wuxi ranked among the top domestic source cities for travelers heading to Macau.
The surge comes against the backdrop of a wider Chinese travel boom. Consumers stretched the three-day New Year holiday into an eight-day break, driving domestic hotel bookings up 280 percent year-on-year on January 1st and pushing leisure product reservations more than 270 percent higher.
Fliggy data also show that spending per person rose over 30 percent, underscoring strong appetite for travel.
Families with children led the surge, with trips rising more than 80 percent and hotel bookings shifting toward high-star properties and all-inclusive resorts. Gen Z travelers also drove growth, with bookings up over 60 percent, favoring experiential activities such as aurora viewing, city performances and theme parks.
Outbound travel showed strong recovery, with international car rentals up 210 percent and chartered tours growing more than tenfold on New Year’s Day.
Short-haul destinations within four hours’ flight — including Hong Kong, Macau, East Asia and Southeast Asia — ranked among the most popular, while Australia and the United States entered the top 10 long-haul destinations.
Emerging markets such as Argentina, Oman, Poland, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan recorded the fastest growth in bookings.
