As the 2026 New Year's holiday approaches, China has seen rising ticket sales and travel bookings for the three-day break, amid the country's ramped-up policy support to boost consumption.
Sales for train tickets for December 31 began on Wednesday, while sales for January 1, 2026, begin on Thursday. According to the report from the travel app Umetrip, the pre-booked travel orders for New Year's Day holiday train tickets have increased by nearly 170 percent year on year.
Meanwhile, as ice-snow tourism is becoming one of the most popular travel choices for the holiday, railway departments across multiple regions have added ice-and-snow themed tourism trains to accommodate the growing demand.
The Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway line, for instance, a key route for winter travel in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, which is expected to see a surge in passenger flow during the holiday, now allows passengers to carry ski equipment on board and offers designated storage space.
In northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, another popular skiing destination, additional temporary trains and extra carriages have been arranged for routes such as Urumqi to Altay and Yining to handle surging travel demand during the holiday period.
Since the beginning of December, bookings for flights and holiday accommodations have shown a steady increase, with overall reservations up nearly 30 percent compared to the same period last year. As of December 17, domestic flight bookings for the 2026 New Year's Day holiday exceeded 1.76 million, a year-on-year increase of around 46 percent.
In addition to strong domestic demand, outbound travel is also gaining momentum, with international flight bookings to popular destinations rising more than 40 percent, and long-haul routes such as those to Europe continuing to grow in popularity.
Travel bookings for upcoming New Year holidays increasing
Travel bookings for upcoming New Year holidays increasing
Banks in south China's Hainan Province has launched innovative multi-functional free trade accounts to enable free and efficient transfer of funds between domestic and overseas accounts, facilitating cross-border capital flow at the Hainan Free Trade Port.
By the end of November this year, 11 banks in Hainan had launched the service, processing transactions equivalent to 295 billion yuan (42 billion U.S. dollars) with entities in 80 countries and regions.
At Hainan's Yangpu Port, one paper manufacturer demands high efficiency in cross-border settlements for its global operations.
Zhao Wenlong, the company's chief financial officer, said the newly opened multi-functional free trade account provides one-stop services for cross-border fund settlements, foreign exchange, investment, and financing. The streamlined process -- free of additional reviews and supplementary documentation -- has significantly boosted capital flow efficiency.
"Its advantages are apparent as it only requires instructions for transactions. For businesses, it's just like direct domestic transfers, eliminating the need for prior approvals and other procedures. This significantly improves the efficiency of corporate fund utilization," said Zhao.
Beyond settlement convenience, the offshore exchange rate advantage of the account has delivered tangible financial benefits to enterprises. Zhao's company saved a significant amount in financial costs on a recent 23 million U.S. dollars foreign exchange settlement transaction thanks to this feature.
"We can choose between two accounts to conduct foreign exchange purchases and settlements with the more favorable exchange rate," said Zhao. The application scenarios for functional free trade accounts are rapidly expanding from basic settlement to complex financial services, becoming a powerful support for enterprises to expand into international markets.
"Starting with the initial simple function of cross-border fund transfers, we have introduced numerous business innovations this year, such as overseas USD financing combined with onshore RMB currency swaps. With the continuous utilization of our services and the integration of our business with the FTP policies, we will roll out more innovative measures to enable enterprises to reap greater benefits," said Li Peng, deputy head of the Hainan Branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
Bank innovations facilitate cross-border capital flow at Hainan FTP
