Tourists are seen at an ice amusement spot in sunset on the Songhuajiang River Harbin section in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Jan. 7, 2024. Dubbed China's "ice city," Harbin has recently seen a tourism boom. An ice amusement spot, transformed from an ice collecting site out of use, has attracted lots of visitors to have fun here with ice packs scattered on the Songhuajiang River Harbin section. (Xinhua/Xie Jianfei)

China is expected to see 9 billion passenger trips during the upcoming Spring Festival travel rush in 2024, likely hitting a new high, the Ministry of Transport said on Tuesday.

Experts said that the expected rush is an important sign of China's continuous consumption recovery, reflecting the positive expectations and confidence of the consumption market. The travel boom is also expected to lay a solid foundation for the country's stable economic growth throughout the year, they said.

The 40-day Spring Festival rush, known as Chunyun, usually a period of high transportation demand as millions of people return home for family reunions, will run from January 26 to March 5.

Trips by railways, highways, waterways and civil aviation are expected to hit 1.8 billion during the period, Vice Minister of Transport Li Yang told a press conference on Tuesday.

About 80 percent of the trips will be self-driving trips, which are likely to hit a new high, Li said.

"During the coming travel rush, the national railway system is expected to complete 480 million passenger trips, or 12 million passenger trips per day. The number will increase by 37.9 percent compared with Chunyun in 2023, and it will be up 18 percent from the pre-epidemic level in 2019," Huang Xin, an official with China Railway, said during the press conference.

Passenger trips by air will exceed 80 million, up 9.8 percent from 2019 and 44.9 percent from 2023, and are likely to reach a record high, said Liang Nan, an official of the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

"The expected number of this year's Spring Festival trips is indeed an impressive figure, which shows that, despite the impact of various factors, people's enthusiasm and demand for going home for the Spring Festival remain very strong.

"It reflects the vitality of China's economy, as well as the positive expectations and confidence in the consumption market," Wang Peng, an associate researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

The travel boom will have a positive impact on China's economic recovery this year, as the prosperity of the Spring Festival rush will directly drive the rebound of related industries such as transportation, tourism and catering, Wang said, noting that it will also boost consumer confidence, laying a good foundation for stable economic growth throughout the year.

Tourism will be in the spotlight during the 40-day travel rush, experts noted. "In addition to the return of workers to their hometowns, a large number of people are expected to choose to travel in China and abroad during the vacation period," Li Chang'an, a professor at the Academy of China Open Economy Studies of the University of International Business and Economics, told Global Times on Tuesday.

According to a statement sent to the Global Times, Trip.com expects a significant growth in outbound and inbound travels during the 2024 Spring Festival holidays (February 10 to 17), with inbound and outbound bookings increasing over 10 times year-on-year.

"With the improvement of people's living standards and the change of consumption concepts, more people choose to travel during the Spring Festival holidays. If this trend continues, the pull of consumption on China's GDP growth in the first quarter of 2024 will be significant," Wang noted.

As 2023 wound down, Chinese consumers' enthusiasm for winter sports and tourism drove a surge in activity. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, retail sales reached 42.8 trillion yuan ($5.47 trillion) in the first 11 months of 2023, up 7.2 percent, including a 10.1 percent increase in November.

Tourists visit the Harbin Ice-Snow World in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Dec. 31, 2023. Many tourists spent their last day of 2023 at Harbin Ice-Snow World, a renowned ice-and-snow theme park in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. Photo: Xinhua

Li noted that the country's economy has, on the whole, continued to gain momentum in its recovery in 2023. Quarter by quarter, the economic situation gradually improved, with a clear recovery in the fourth quarter in areas such as foreign trade, investment and consumption, Li said.

Wang said that China's economy will continue to grow steadily in 2024 and make greater contributions to the recovery and prosperity of the global economy.