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Passenger trips in China are expected to experience a sharp rise during the New Year's holidays, with some regions even surpassing the levels seen in 2019 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data from railway and aviation departments, as well as travel platforms.

Industry data and experts suggest that these trends reflect a positive start for tourism economy in 2024.

China's railway transportation for the five New Year's Day holidays officially started on Friday. The national railway is expected to facilitate 63 million passenger trips. Saturday is anticipated to be the peak day, with an estimated 15 million passenger trips to be made, China Railway announced on Friday.

The number of passenger trips during the peak is expected to triple on a year-on-year basis, according to official data.

To accommodate the increasing travel demand, China Railway has boosted transportation capacity. This involves leveraging newly opened railway lines and platforms, while adding extra services in response to the heightened demand.

Passenger trip growth varies across regions, but a notable shift is anticipated in the Yangtze River Delta, reflecting positive economic momentum.

New Year's rail operations for the Yangtze River Delta railway officially commenced on Friday.

The period spans five days, during which the Yangtze River Delta railway is projected to facilitate 12.5 million passenger trips, averaging 2.5 million passenger trips per day. This represents a growth of over 15 percent compared with the same period in 2019, according to the Shanghai Railway Bureau said, as reported by thepaper.cn.

In addition to rail travel, aviation during the New Year Day's holidays is also expected to be strong.

An estimated 49,000 flights are scheduled to be operated nationwide during the holiday period, marking an increase of around 85.5 percent compared with the same period in 2023. On average, approximately 16,300 flights will be completed per day, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said, according to media reports.

It is anticipated that the highest single-day flight volume during the holiday will take place on Monday, the first day of 2024, reaching an estimated 16,600 flights, the CAAC said.

Based on the booking numbers, from December 30, 2023, to Monday, passenger volume is expected to reach 4.95 million, representing an increase of about 112 percent compared with the same period during the New Year's Day holidays in 2023, CAAC said.

Most travelers are boarding a plan or train for a short holiday during the New Year's period, the Global Times learned.

Apart from the routes connecting the four major city clusters of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu, the focal flight routes are mainly concentrated on travels between Beijing and Sanya, South China's Hainan Province, and Beijing and Kunming, Southwest China's Yunnan Province.

Outbound travel, buoyed by supportive visa policies and a rebound in consumer spending, also witnessed a recovery trend in 2023. This trend is expected to continue, as indicated by the travel activities during the New Year's Day holidays, industry data and experts said.

Recent data released by Alibaba-owned travel platform Fliggy shows that as of December 18, bookings for New Year's Day holidays had increased nearly fourfold from the previous year. Among these, outbound travel was leading the way for the start of 2024.

The travel platform saw a nearly tenfold year-on-year growth in bookings for outbound trips during the New Year's Day holidays, with popular destinations including China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, and Australia.

A business manager from Beijing Daxing International Airport told CCTV on Friday said that, based on their latest observation, there has been a significant increase in seat occupancy rates on routes to destinations such as London, Kuala Lumpur, and Tokyo.

Travel data provided by the railway and aviation departments for the upcoming New Year's Day holidays reveals that the domestic tourism sector is showing promising growth, indicating a strong start for the industry in the coming year, Yang Jinsong, a senior expert with the China Tourism Academy, told the Global Times on Friday.

"Overall, 2024 is expected to maintain an optimistic trend, and this growth is likely to be relatively robust compared with 2023," Yang said.

There is also an upward trend in outbound tourism. Throughout this year, improvements in outbound flight routes and the implementation of policies facilitating visa processes have contributed to a positive transformation in outbound tourism, the industry expert said.

Despite certain challenges, with rising consumer sentiment and targeted government stimulus, Yang believes that there will be a noticeable increase in outbound tourism next year, and "one cannot rule out that it could reach pre-pandemic levels seen in 2019."

In 2024, without the aura of "revenge consumption," the tourism industry will return to normalcy, entering a new stage of strong growth relying on product and service innovation, Ctrip, an online travel agency in China, also said in a statement sent to the Global Times on Friday.