Photo taken on Jan. 20, 2022 shows street decorations for the Beijing 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games before the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Chu Jiayin)
BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) --During the seven-day Spring Festival holiday, China's consumer market presented diversified highlights and trends that show the huge market potential for domestic demand, reported by Economic Information Daily Monday.
For example, 251 million domestic tourists in China realized the tourism earnings of 289.198 billion yuan; as for Bing Dwen Dwen, a mascot of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, many related products were sold out, and the sales of ice and snow sports goods also experienced doubled growth; the box office income exceeded 5.9 billion yuan, the second highest Spring Festival record in China's movie history…
An analyst noted that the spending spree was driven by the traditional peak consumption season and a series of favorable policies, making a good start of the consumer market.
-- High popularity of cultural and tourist activities and thriving ice and snow sports during the Spring Festival
On February 6, China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced that its data center recorded 251 million person-times of domestic tourists during the seven-day Spring Festival holiday in 2022, about 73.9 percent of the figure of the same period in 2019 as per comparable caliber; the domestic tourism revenue reached 289.198 billion yuan, about 56.3 percent of that during the Spring Festival holiday in 2019.
Statistics from several tourism platforms also show the strong demand during the holiday. A Tuniu's report noted that under the proposal of "staying put during the Spring Festival", many local governments issued holiday culture and tourism policies to benefit the peopleand more and more people chose not to travel far to celebrate the Spring Festival. For example, the local resort hotels became a new favorite in the market. During the Spring Festival, the bookings of high-star hotels and theme-park resorts increased by 53 percent year on year.
It is worth mentioning that the Spring Festival coincides with the Beijing Winter Olympics, so the mass people are unprecedentedly passionate about the ice and snow sportsand the ski resorts enjoyed endless streams of visitors nationwide.
The Fliggy's data show that the bookings for ice and snow tourism products had a year-on-year increase of over 30 percent during this Spring Festival, while those of "snow and ice + hot spring" products grew by over 40 percent. A Ctrip's report said that as of February 5, the bookings for ski-themed hotels grew by 54 percent year on year during the festival while the ticket orders for snow-ice and ski resorts grew by nearly 40 percent.
The ice and snow tourism became the most popular form of tourism during the Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger, and diversified products of ice and snow sports tour, folk tour, healthcare tour and indoor tour provided people with more options to enjoy the fun of ice and snow, said by Wu Ruoshan, a contract research fellow with the Tourism Research Center, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
-- New highlights and new fashions unleash the domestic demand
While activating people's enthusiasm for ice and snow activities, the Beijing Winter Olympics demonstrated its unparallel "marketing" power. With the opening of the event, over 1 million people flooded to the official Olympic flagship store on Tmall, and many Bing Dwen Dwen products were sold out overnight. Statistics of several consumer platforms show a rapid increase in the sales of ice and snow sports products like ski clothes and snowboards.
From the Spring Festival's Eve to the fourth day of the first lunar month, the sales of ski equipment on Tmall had a remarkable year-on-year increase of over 180 percent while those of ice sports products grew by over 300 percent.
According to JD.com, during the Spring Festival, the total sales of ski-related products soared up by 322 percent year on year while the overall sales of ice sports products rocketed by 430 percent.
In addition, the box office set a new 7-day record in China's movie history during the Spring Festival in 2022.As of February 6, it exceeded 5.904 billion yuan while other highlights of consumer market segments were emerging, like smart home appliances, time-honored brands, and cultural creativity.
-- Policies on the way to maintain the recovery momentum
To counter the pressure from possible shrinking demand in 2022, relevant authorities will make more efforts to boost consumption and expand domestic demand to maintain the recovery momentum of the consumer markets that serves as a pillar of economic resurrection and stability.
An official of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) recently indicated that given the uncertainties in Q1, 2022, the authorities should develop favorable policies ahead of schedule and meet various challenges by stable economic operation trends. A number of policies and measures will be adopted to expand domestic demand, e.g. encouraging enterprises to provide more customized, intelligent and green products, implementing measures to boost the consumption of major items like automobiles and home appliances, enriching supply of tourism products like regional travel, outing, and ice and snow tourism, and expanding new consumption forms like information consumption and green consumption.
Xu Xingfeng, person in charge of the Department of Market Operation and Consumption Promotion of the Ministry of Commerce said that based on the gradual recovery of domestic consumption in 2021, China will focus on five aspects, includingimproving traditional consumption, accelerating new consumption, upgrading urban consumption, strengthening weakness of rural consumption, and organizing promotional activities for consumption, so as to further tap the potential of consumption and inject vitality into economic growth.
According to Guan Lixin, deputy director of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation's Institute of Distribution and Consumption, though the uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic have hampered the recovery of the consumer market, China remains a global leader in economic development and pandemic prevention and control with strong economic resilience and vitality, which benefits the sustainable growth of consumer market.
In 2022, more diversified, customized, and quality- and service-oriented supply and demand will emerge in the consumer market. The people's desire for a better life and the considerable potential of the domestic market will provide strong driving force for consumption recovery, Guan added.
(Edited by Gao Jingyan with Xinhua Silk Road, gaojingyan@xinhua.org)
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