China's railways carried a single-day record 25.204 million passengers on 1 October, the first day of the seven-day National Day holiday, even as total cross-regional trips slipped 1.9% from a year earlier to 329.495 million, according to the Ministry of Transport. The Golden Week break, which many workers have stretched to 13 days by joining it to the Mid-Autumn Festival on 25 September, is also redirecting outbound tourists, with Japan dropping out of the top 10 overseas destinations at travel agency Tuniu after ranking first last year.
The figures arrive as analysts question whether record travel volumes will lift spending. Reuters reported on 29 September that the holiday, typically a gauge of household spending, coincides this year with weak consumer demand, deflationary pressure and a property downturn that has run for years.
Trains up, roads down on the first day
The ministry's breakdown for 1 October, carried by Xinhua, showed railway passenger trips up 9% year on year at 25.204 million. Road trips, which make up the bulk of holiday movement, totalled 300.36 million, down 2.8%, while waterway trips rose 7.2% to 1.416 million and civil aviation carried 2.515 million passengers, up 0.5%.
The day-one total fell roughly 10 million short of the 340 million trips the government had projected for the peak day, according to Kyodo News. For 2 October, the ministry projected 308.19 million cross-regional trips, up 2.1% from a year earlier. Its forecast for the full seven days is 2.13 billion trips, or about 300 million a day, around 1.7 times a normal day's volume.
China Railway scheduled 1,462 extra trains for 2 October and expected 20.39 million passenger trips that day. For Saturday, it planned 910 additional trains and 18.9 million trips, with demand tilting toward short-haul routes, Global Times reported. In the Yangtze River Delta, China Railway Shanghai Group carried 4.427 million passengers on 1 October, a single-day holiday record for the region.
Electric vehicles are part of the road picture. The National Energy Administration said highway charging volume reached 28.05 million kilowatt-hours on 1 October across 62,700 monitored facilities, up 60.4% from the first day of last year's holiday and a single-day holiday record. Expressway tolls are waived during the holiday, and Kyodo reported that the government expects more than 90% of domestic travel to be by car.
Longer trips, farther destinations
Outbound demand is running well ahead of last year. The Civil Aviation Administration of China said international flight bookings for the 25 September to 7 October period were up 22.5% year on year as of 24 September, and forecast that Chinese airlines would carry 31.19 million passengers over the whole stretch, up 3.6%. In the same data, as reported by Global Times, flights to Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Laos grew by about 20%, and those to Britain, Germany and Spain by about 15%.
Reuters, citing Trip.com Group, reported that more than half of outbound flight bookings over the holiday period were for departures before 1 October, with an average trip length above nine days. Hotel stays of at least seven nights rose 123% from last year's Golden Week, and multi-destination itineraries climbed 84%.
Spring Tour, a Shanghai-based travel agent, told Reuters that long-haul packages to Spain and Portugal, the Balkans, Northern Europe, Greece and New Zealand had sold out by mid-August. Routes to Central Asia, the Caucasus and Australia also sold out ahead of schedule.
A survey by marketing firm Dragon Trail International in August found 54% of respondents planning overseas trips over the holiday period, compared with 35% a year earlier. Among short-haul destinations, booking platform Qunar listed Bangkok, Seoul, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore among the most popular, while its product bookings for Europe, South America, Australia and New Zealand rose more than 40% year on year.
Japan leaves the top 10
Japan is no longer among the top 10 overseas destinations for Chinese travellers planning holiday trips through Tuniu, Kyodo News reported on 1 October. The agency said Indonesia, Turkey and South Korea are now among the most popular overseas destinations. Global Times, summarising a Nikkei report, said data from Tongcheng Travel showed Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Seoul as the most popular outbound destinations, with no Japanese city in the top 10.
Kyodo linked the shift to the downturn in China-Japan relations. Chinese authorities urged citizens in November 2025 to refrain from travelling to Japan, after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told parliament that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could prompt a response from Japan's defence forces. Japan National Tourism Organization figures showed arrivals from China in the first half of 2026 down 56.4% from a year earlier.
Jiang Yiyi, a professor at the School of Leisure Sports and Tourism at Beijing Sport University, told Global Times that the changing destination mix suggests geopolitical and market factors can quickly reshape travel flows.
Spending is the open question
Reuters calculated from government data that average spending per trip during last year's Golden Week fell to a three-year low of 911.04 yuan ($135.70), even though travel volume rose. Ailsa Liao, a senior analyst at Forthright Securities, described a "K-shaped" pattern in which "volumes can be strong even as spending per consumer remains under pressure," and said per capita tourism spending fell during both the 2025 National Day holiday and the 2026 Spring Festival.
Dragon Trail's survey pointed the same way: only 5% of respondents planned to stay in luxury hotels, against 33% choosing mid-range options. "The market is more cost-sensitive than previously," said Sienna Parulis-Cook, the firm's director of marketing and communications. CNBC noted that, according to Goldman Sachs, trip volumes and revenue during last year's holiday were still about 3% below 2019 levels.
Authorities have tried to support spending. A month-long "National Day Cultural and Tourism Consumption Month" campaign began on 22 September, and China Railway is running a 16-day peak transport period from 23 September to 8 October, for which it expects about 284 million passenger trips.
Hong Kong and Macau are among the beneficiaries of the break. Hong Kong's Immigration Department recorded 439,532 mainland visitor trips over the Mid-Autumn weekend, about a quarter of the 1.73 million inbound trips, residents included, over the three days from Friday to Sunday, the South China Morning Post reported, and a tourism industry representative expects hotel occupancy above 90% in popular districts during Golden Week. Hong Kong authorities expect 7.4 million passenger trips in and out of the city over the seven days, and Macau more than 5 million, according to CNBC.
The holiday runs through 7 October. Full-week trip counts from the Ministry of Transport, and the tourism revenue estimates that usually follow from culture and tourism authorities, will show how far the spending data diverges from the volume figures.