UnionPay Big Data: What are the new trends in consumption during the Spring Festival?

1. Entertaining relatives and friends

The Spring Festival is also the most important festival for Chinese people. When entertaining relatives and friends, they usually choose higher-end hotels and restaurants, especially the reunion dinner on New Year’s Eve. , generally speaking, the restaurant with the largest number of diners has the highest quality. The average expenditure on food and beverage during the Spring Festival is nearly 40% higher than that on other holidays. The average expenditure on New Year's Eve is twice as much as that on other holidays.

Although people’s investment in dining out is significantly higher than other holidays, during the Spring Festival, a festival when thousands of families reunite, choosing to entertain relatives and friends at home is still the first choice for people.

The Spring Festival is the most intensive period of population migration in China. Many mainland tourists go to first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen to travel, shop and visit relatives and friends, driving local catering consumption. For some provinces with a large number of migrant workers, many tourists return to their hometowns to reunite with their families during the Spring Festival. Savoring the long-lost hometown flavor at home has become the first choice of many tourists.

2. Self-driving travel is increasing year by year

“Traveling to celebrate the New Year” is becoming more and more popular. Tourism travel transaction data shows that starting from the week before the Spring Festival, road, railway passenger transport and air ticket sales have gradually heated up. During the Spring Festival, the total transaction amount of these three types of transactions increased by 42% compared with the same period last year, with highways having the highest growth rate, reaching 98%, and aviation, aviation, The year-on-year growth rate of railways was 39%. The amount of gas transactions related to self-driving travel increased by 39% year-on-year, and the amount of ticket sales and credit card transactions at large scenic spots across the country increased by 40%. Self-driving leisure travel and self-guided vacation travel have become the first choice for more and more people during the New Year.

As the trend of outbound travel changes to "free travel and in-depth travel", tourists' card payment has also extended from traditional shopping to more areas such as vacation and leisure. Local unique experiences and services, amusement parks and The proportion of consumption such as attraction tickets and other items is increasing year by year.

3. Credit card swiping at sales terminals is still the mainstream

UnionPay big data also shows new changes in residents’ payment methods. In terms of absolute volume, UnionPay online transactions during the Spring Festival are mainly through POS machines. (Sales terminals) Mainly use credit cards, accounting for more than half. The proportion of online business through mobile and Internet channels is lower than on weekdays. This is related to the closure of many e-commerce logistics during holidays. However, in terms of year-on-year growth, POS machine transaction amount increased by 17%, while online business through mobile Internet and other channels increased by 170% year-on-year, indicating that with the development of mobile payment and Internet finance, more consumers tend to try Some new payment methods.