China saw 314 million domestic trips during the five-day May Day holiday from Thursday to Monday, up 6.4 percent year on year, according to data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, as culture-themed tour packages and holiday discounts fueled a surge in market demand.
Total domestic tourism spending reached 180.269 billion yuan (24.79 billion U.S. dollars), marking an eight percent year-on-year rise.
To meet the growing and diversified demands, local governments rolled out an array of cultural activities, travel packages, and public benefit initiatives, proving to be welcomed by holidaymakers.
Most trips made during the May Day holiday were via rail, with total train trips made during the holiday standing at 112 million, up 10.5 percent year on year. On Monday, as returning passenger flow picked up, railway trips were estimated to hit 21.1 million in a single day.
National highways and expressways across China also experienced a significant rise in returning passenger flows, with an estimated 244.93 million people traveling via road on Monday alone, as road travel remains a predominant option for short and medium-distance trips.
As to airline services, civil aviation saw robust growth as well. Around 2.32 million air passenger trips were expected on Monday. Over the entire holiday period, airlines were expected to handle 11.15 million trips, averaging 2.23 million per day, an 11.8 percent increase compared to the same period in 2024. A total of 91,000 flights were estimated to operate during the holiday, up 5.5 percent year on year, with an on-time performance rate of 89 percent, an improvement of 1.97 percentage points from last year.
China's May Day holiday trips hit 314 million
China's May Day holiday trips hit 314 million
China's fiscal operations remained stable and orderly in 2025, with satisfactory budget execution, according to a fiscal policy execution report released by the Finance Ministry on Tuesday.
China's general public budget revenue hit 21.6 trillion yuan (about 3.14 trillion U.S. dollars) last year, with tax revenue registering positive growth, said the report.
Expenditure in the national general public budget totaled 28.7 trillion yuan, ensuring spending in key areas such as social security and employment, education, and healthcare.
In compliance with the requirement for Party and government offices to tighten their belts, budgets for spending on official overseas visits, official vehicles, and official hospitality decreased by 5 percent compared to that in 2024, ensuring more effective use of government funds.
In terms of measures to boost consumption, efforts were made to expand the scope of consumer goods trade-in program, and provide interest subsidies for consumer loans, according to the report.
Data showed that by the end of 2025, the balance of personal consumption loans from 23 lending institutions approached nearly 6 trillion yuan, an increase of over 500 billion yuan, or 10.2 percent, compared to that in 2024.
The institutions issued more than 2 trillion yuan in loans to over 1.4 million entities in the service sector, supporting them in upgrading consumer infrastructure, and enhancing their service supply.
In terms of efforts to increase investment, the ceiling for new local government special-purpose bonds was set at 4.4 trillion yuan in 2025, an increase of 500 billion yuan from the previous year, the report said.
These funds were primarily channeled into sectors such as transportation infrastructure, government-subsidized housing projects and urban renewal projects, and infrastructure for forward-looking, strategic emerging industries.
In total, more than 48,000 projects were supported and over 300 billion yuan was used as project capital.
Furthermore, the proactive fiscal policy in 2025 played a vital role in fostering the deep integration of sci-tech and industrial innovation, advancing urban-rural integration and regional coordination, and ensuring and improving people's livelihoods, according to the report.
China's fiscal operations remain stable, orderly in 2025: report
