The Spring Festival is not only China's most important traditional holiday, but also an important window for observing China's consumer economy. Recently, various statistics have shown that the overall consumer economy data for the 2024 Spring Festival holiday was very bright. During this year's Spring Festival holiday, the number of visitors to key cultural and tourism attractions nationwide reached 123 million, an increase of 22.8% over the same period in 2023; the mainland box office for Spring Festival releases reached 8.016 billion yuan, with total admissions of 163 million, breaking records for Spring Festival box office, screenings, and admissions in Chinese film history; family gatherings during the Spring Festival grew significantly, with nationwide night market consumption accounting for about 53% of the total, up 48% from the same period in 2023, and ticket sales for leisure districts more than doubled…… This series of figures showing positive growth not only indicates a strong rebound in the 2024 Spring Festival consumer economy, but also reflects the nationwide growth of consumer confidence.

Although times are constantly changing and the “ways of opening” the Spring Festival celebration differ, the Spring Festival, as an important cultural symbol of family reunion, exchange among relatives and friends, and a repository of nostalgia, remains deeply rooted in the cultural genes and cultural memory of countless Chinese people, providing important support for consolidating cultural confidence. As the firm core of Spring Festival culture, the long-standing fine traditional Chinese culture has provided a steady stream of deep momentum for the vigorous development of the 2024 Spring Festival consumer economy and promoted the growth of the festive economy. On the one hand, the Spring Festival custom of family reunion has added a “mobile festive flavor,” displaying a rapidly moving Chinese Spring Festival amid the bustling scenes of Spring Festival travel. Data from the 2024 comprehensive transport Spring Festival travel task force show that from February 10 to 17 (the first to the eighth day of the first lunar month), the total volume of cross-regional personnel movement across society is estimated at 2.311 billion person-trips. Among them, railway passenger volume is estimated at 99.59 million person-trips; road personnel movement is estimated at 2.184 billion person-trips; waterway passenger volume is estimated at 9.4 million person-trips; and civil aviation passenger volume is estimated at 18.04 million person-trips. Airplanes, high-speed rail, trains, long-distance buses, self-driving, and other modes running in parallel weave together a busy journey of returning home to visit relatives and holiday travel. On the other hand, people's shared longing to return home for reunion during the Spring Festival has heightened the “flourishing festive flavor” and given rise to Spring Festival consumption styles that meet people's diverse needs today, such as reunion dinners in Nanjing, fireworks displays in Hong Kong, flower street fairs in Guangzhou, and group purchases of in-depth family cleaning services in Sichuan, fully demonstrating the bright, celebratory theme of Spring Festival culture and boosting the vigorous development of the Spring Festival logistics economy and New Year goods economy.

The growth of the cultural economy has also become an important pole of the Spring Festival economy. In recent years, the way people visit relatives and friends during the Spring Festival is no longer merely “gathering around the stove for warmth” and “staying up late for long talks,” but has shifted to an exchange model of “using culture as the medium” and seeking “points of cultural empathy.” Among these, relatives and friends gathering to watch Spring Festival films together has become an important way of interpersonal interaction. Platform data show that of the 163 million total admissions during the 2024 Spring Festival film season, the proportion of people buying group tickets of three or more was 26.4%, and this proportion has continued to rise year by year; in terms of film genres, films emphasizing “family fun” are more popular. As the film market recovers and film supply returns to normal, the joy of a happy family reunion at the New Year is directly reflected in viewers' increased willingness to watch films, also giving the film industry a good start for the new year and serving as an important manifestation of the vitality of the cultural economy during the Spring Festival.

The growth of the study-tour economy has also added a striking touch to the Spring Festival economy. During the Spring Festival, “study tours with children” mainly unfold in two aspects. First, Spring Festival university tours are exceptionally popular: the Sakura Top Library at Wuhan University, the Geology Palace at Jilin University, and others have become check-in spots for many families on “study tours with children,” letting children roam through universities steeped in academic atmosphere and gain the edification of humanistic ideas and the inspiration of a striving spirit. Second, landmark cultural sites have become important destinations for Spring Festival “study tours with children”: cultural landmarks such as Tianjin Ancient Culture Street, the thousand-year-old city of Wuhu in Anhui, and the Tang Paradise in Xi'an have all become important venues for cultural study tours, and interactive, experiential cultural and tourism experiences also allow people to understand history immersively, endowing Spring Festival study tours with rich cultural charm. Celebrating the New Year with vigor and prosperity, let us welcome the soaring Year of the Dragon amid the fervor of the Spring Festival economy.