China's 2025 Spring Festival holiday set several records in travel, leisure, dining and consumption, while being the first such celebration since the Spring Festival's inscription in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list late last year.

Spring Festival tourists flock to the iconic Jiaxiu Tower in Guiyang, Guizhou Province, on February 4, 2025. /VCG

The extended eight-day Spring Festival holiday saw movement of people at a vast scale as they travelled to partake in the festivities or to be with friends and family, or simply to make the most of their time off. As per China's Ministry of Transport, the January 28 to February 4 period saw a cross-regional flow of people exceeding 2.3 billion, with the final day of the holiday on Tuesday witnessing peak return passenger traffic. On Monday, the China State Railway Group reported that the country's railways transported 16.45 million passengers, the highest single-day passenger traffic in the Spring Festival's history.

It wasn't just domestic tourism that saw massive volumes – 14.36 million cross-border trips were also recorded, up 6.3 percent from a year earlier. Of these, 958,000 cross-border trips were made by foreign travellers during the holiday, up 22.9 percent from the previous year, with relaxed visa norms and increased connectivity continuing to take effect, the National Immigration Administration reported.

As the Spring Festival holiday comes to an end, large numbers of travellers gather at the Shanghai Hongqiao Station in Shanghai, China, on February 5, 2024. /VCG

Catering to the increased demand required deployment of additional capacities. On the final day of the holiday, railway departments in the Yangtze River Delta region planned for up to 392 additional direct passenger trains and 195 in-line passenger trains, as well as reconnection of up to 113 motor train units to meet the requirements.

In terms of last-mile connectivity, Beijing extended subway operating hours to cater to late-night or early-morning arrivals, while buses' frequency and intervals were dynamically adjusted, the Ministry of Transport said. The ministry added that taxis and ride-hailing services also bolstered their nighttime "spotting" and scheduling.

Driven by blockbuster releases, movie-goers throng concession stands at a cinema in Feidong County, Hefei, Anhui Province, China. on February 3, 2025. /VCG

Leisure also witnessed strong numbers. China's film industry, for instance, set a pair of new records during the festival. Box office collections for the holiday period reached a highest-ever 9.51 billion yuan ($1.33 billion), driven by an unprecedented 187 million movie-goers, as per the China National Film Administration (NFA). Big-budget and high-profile film releases presented viewers with options, with "Ne Zha 2" claiming top-spot on the box office charts with collections of an eyewatering 4.94 billion yuan. "Detective Chinatown 1900," "Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force," "Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants," "Boonie Bears: Future Reborn" and "Operation Hadal" ranked two-to-six, as per the NFA citing film data platform Maoyan.

Leisure was also reflected in the variety of choices in holiday destinations. With it being the season for ice and snow tourism, China's top ski destination, Altay Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, saw 191,000 visitors on the first four days of the holiday, according to Xinhua. In the south, meanwhile, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region's Yangshuo County welcomed 410,600 tourists in just the first three days of the holiday, generating 589 million yuan in tourism revenue.

A view of the beautiful scenery along the Lijiang River in Yangshuo County, Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on February 3, 2025. /CFP

China's science-technology museums received more than 3 million visitors during the holiday, data from the Beijing-based China Science and Technology Museum showed.

A child admires an exhibit at the Shaoxing Museum during the Spring Festival holiday in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, on February 2, 2025. /VCG

Food and shopping remained an inalienable part of the Spring Festival Holiday and the Chinese New Year, with online channels and e-commerce seeing notable figures. According to data from the People's Bank of China, the first 7 days of the holiday saw China UnionPay and NetsUnion Clearing Corporation processing a total of 22.08 billion transactions amounting to 8.52 trillion yuan, up 25.7 percent and 17.1 percent, respectively. Food ordering and e-commerce platform Meituan, which had earlier reported a 305-percent increase in online reservations for Chinese New Year's Eve dinners, reported on February 5 that the total customer flow in national business districts increased by 17 percent compared to last year, with in-store dining in business districts growing 18.7 percent.

A restaurant is crowded with customers during the Spring Festival holiday in Shanghai on February 4, 2025. /VCG

The strong numbers for the Spring Festival has validated the measures taken by the government, various authorities, service providers and other stakeholders to offer consumers a vast bouquet of options to indulge their time and celebratory appetites, setting the stage for a strong consumption-oriented start to the nation's economy this year.