{"id":13625,"date":"2024-02-07T06:30:36","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T06:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focus.cbbc.org\/?p=13625"},"modified":"2025-04-23T09:02:26","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T09:02:26","slug":"what-is-chunyun-and-how-important-is-it-to-the-chinese-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focus.cbbc.org\/what-is-chunyun-and-how-important-is-it-to-the-chinese-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"What is \u2018chunyun\u2019 and how important is it to the Chinese economy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Also referred to as the Spring Festival travel rush, chunyun is the world\u2019s largest annual human migration<\/h3>\n

Chunyun (literally \u201cSpring transport\u201d) refers to the 40-day peak travel period around Spring Festival (aka Lunar New Year), which this year falls on 10 February. Millions of people take advantage of the extended time off from work and study to travel back to their home regions and spend the important festival with family. As a result, train stations and airports are packed, and tickets are expensive and hard to come by.<\/p>\n

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How big will chunyun 2024 be?<\/h4>\n

One year on from the lifting of China\u2019s Covid restrictions<\/a>, this year\u2019s chunyun is expected to return to pre-pandemic levels, with Ministry of Transport officials predicting more than 9 billion passenger trips. Between 26 January and 1 February alone \u2013 the first week of the peak travel period \u2013 the country\u2019s railway network handled 81.55 million journeys, or over 11 million a day.<\/p>\n

Many hope that the Spring Festival period will inject some much-needed vitality into the economy after the catering and travel industries contributed significantly to China\u2019s GDP in 2023. Nevertheless, pent-up demand is waning, and some consumers will be spooked by risks such as the continued troubles in the property sector.<\/a><\/p>\n