Shanghai tops holiday entertainment and dining spend domestically
Shanghai has topped domestic cities in terms of entertainment and dining spend during the New Year holiday, as new formats of leisure activities pick up momentum.
Strong rebounds in a wide range of service sectors injected an uplifting spirit for the coming year.
Many people used the three-day holiday for short excursions and the Yangtze River Delta region welcomed visitors from neighboring areas.
Shanghai accountant Minnie Cao said she drove her parents to Chongming Island on New Year's Day.
"It's a refreshing journey and a memorable way to spend some time outdoors and celebrate the new year with my family," she said.
Shanghai, along with Beijing, Chengdu, and Shenzhen – all also popular tourist destinations for domestic visitors – are the top ranking cities in terms of dining and leisure spend.
The overall dining spend nationwide over the weekend surged 2.3 times from the same period a year earlier, according to online payment data by Meituan.
Pudong, Minhang, Huangpu and Jing'an were the districts in Shanghai that attracted the most retail and leisure spending.
Local restaurant Renhe Guan, which mainly serves Shanghai-style dishes, had hundreds of eager diners queuing up during the vacation, and overall foot traffic was 50 percent higher than on normal weekends. Transactions at Chinese-style teahouses in Shanghai went up 260 percent in the past weekend.
Hotpot chain Haidilao said it welcomed more than 2.4 million diners on December 31 at over 1,000 stores nationwide, a record high since 2019, and those in second-tier cities such as Changsha, Wuxi, Lanzhou and Yueyang were especially popular.
Stuffed toys helped local shopping malls attract young customers.
Hopson Mall in Yangpu District attracted a record high of more than 200,000 visitors on New Year's Eve, with new restaurants, cute cartoon figures, and live performances appealing to visitors.
The overall number of visitors for the three-day vacation jumped 174 percent from a year earlier, and total sales jumped 1.8 times.
New formats of leisure activities such as winter sports have been embraced by tourists and Harbin, in northeastern China's Heilongjiang Province, attracted veteran skaters as well as those from warmer parts of the country.
The number of bookings for homestays in Harbin jumped 27 times from a year earlier, according to short term rental site Tujia, and the rebound of domestic travel made headlines.
The apparel wholesale market in Harbin was also a hit, with shoppers embracing winter fur coats and cotton-padded jackets.
Fanny Tong and four of her friends went on a skiing trip to the Beidahu area of Jilin Province.
"It was a rare chance for those who live in Hangzhou to fully embrace the ice world," she said.
Yibin Apparel City, a wholesale market in Harbin, was a hit with shoppers looking for fur coats and vintage-style cotton-padded jackets.
