Largest annual migration begins as Chinese gear up for Year of the Pig
Big cities like Beijing and Shanghai will empty out as migrant workers return home and government offices and affiliated institutions will shut down for more than a week starting first week of February.
Chinese travellers are expected to make nearly 3 billion trips including 73 million journeys by air during the 40-day Spring Festival or Chinese New Year (CNY) travel rush beginning from Monday.
The Year of the Pig in the Chinese lunar calendar begins February 5.
Simply put – the biggest annual internal migration of people in the world will see hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens on the move, mostly to travel back to their hometowns to spend the new year with family.
Then, at the end of the week-long celebrations between February 4 and 10 and in the days to follow, they will return to their cities and towns of work.
Big cities like Beijing and Shanghai will empty out as migrant workers return home and government offices and affiliated institutions will shut down for more than a week starting first week of February.
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s top planning body, shared some more mind-boggling numbers: “The number of road trips is projected to reach some 2.46 billion, a 0.8 percent drop from last year, while train trips are likely to top 413 million during the period, up 8.3 percent year-on-year”.
“About 2.99 billion trips are expected to be made during the 2019 Spring Festival travel rush between Monday and March 1, with rail and air travel gaining significantly,” NDRC officials said.
“Air travel will likely see some 73 million trips, surging 12 percent, while boat trips are predicted to hit 43 million, about the same as last year,” officials added.
“In addition to the normal amount of 15,600 flights a day, the Civil Aviation Administration of China plans to schedule a total of 35,000 more flights during the travel rush,” Dong Zhiyi, deputy head of the administration told state media.
There are no parallels of this kind of travel rush in the world; in terms of numbers, the ongoing Kumbh mela in Prayagraj in India where 120 million are expected to gather in the coming weeks possibly comes close.
A large number of Chinese will also go abroad during the holidays.
“Over 400 million Chinese will travel during the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year, among them nearly 7 million will travel abroad,” official news agency, Xinhua, quoted Ctrip, a Shanghai-based online travel agency as saying earlier this month.
The Ctrip report said people from over 100 Chinese cities had booked to travel to nearly 500 destinations across over 90 countries and regions.
“Thailand, Japan, Indonesia and Singapore are among the most popular destinations while Nordic countries, the United Arab Emirates and Spain have seen the fastest growth of Chinese visitors,” the report said.
It’s also about the revenue – massive revenues – that the holiday generates.
Last year, the commerce ministry said retail and catering sectors posted sales of 926 billion yuan ($146 billion) during the holiday period, an increase of 10.2 percent from the year-ago holiday.
The Chinese also travelled more during year last year’s holidays, with tourism revenue rising 12.6 percent to 475 billion yuan or $ 75 billion), a Xinhua report said last year, citing the China National Tourism Administration.
