(Yicai) April 8 -- Chinese tourists spent CNY61.4 billion (USD9 billion) in the country during the Qingming Festival, a 6.6 percent increase from a year earlier, boosted by the alignment of the holiday with the new spring break for primary and secondary school students piloted.

The number of domestic tourist trips rose 6.8 percent to 135 million over the three-day Qingming Festival that ended April 6, according to data released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism yesterday.

The Qingming Festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day in English, is a traditional Chinese holiday for remembering and honoring the dead. Ten Chinese provinces introduced a spring break for primary and secondary school students this year, reshaping the travel industry and giving a strong start to the consumer market this quarter, with some regions setting the break from April 1 to 3 to connect it with the Qingming Festival.

Holiday consumption reflects a long-term trend of extended consumption chains and optimized consumption structures, Zhu Keli, founding director of the China Institute of New Economy, told Yicai. The holiday economy has become a more solid and sustainable driver of overall consumption growth, he stressed.

The strong consumption momentum during the spring holiday, bolstered by supportive policies, has set a positive tone for the steady recovery of the consumer market throughout the year, he said, adding that the trend shows the inherent strengths of China's consumer market, its resilience, vast potential, and vibrant dynamism, providing robust support for sustained economic growth.

Key retail and catering enterprises' average daily sales jumped 2.4 percent during this year's Qingming Festival from a year ago, according to business big data from the commerce ministry. Footfall and revenue of 78 key monitored pedestrian streets rose 6 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively.

The pilot spring break initiative effectively created an additional "mini Golden Week," giving a significant boost to domestic travel and consumption and likely driving value-added growth of over CNY250 billion (USD36.6 billion) in related industries, according to Trip.Com Research Institute. This directly stimulates employment and continuously injects new momentum into expanding domestic demand.

Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Guizhou were among the provinces that implemented a spring break at many primary and secondary schools, creating a six-day break and significantly boosting family travel.

The Qingming Festival-spring break combination saw strong demand for parent-child trips, short-haul travel, and longer-distance vacations, according to the travel site Qunar. Air ticket bookings on several popular routes surged over 40 percent from a year earlier.

The extended holiday has shifted travel patterns from short-distance family visits to long-haul in-depth trips, noted Wang Peng, an associate researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences. This has significantly expanded cross-regional travel ranges, releasing the consumption potential of long-distance related industries such as aviation and accommodation, Wang added.

In addition, it has transformed the seasonal advantages of spring into tangible consumer demand, driving the holiday economy toward sustained growth rather than concentrated spikes, laying a solid foundation for year-round consumption expansion, Wang said.

Driven by the holiday economy, China's consumer market is expected to maintain a moderate recovery trend in the second quarter.

Retail sales growth may remain sluggish due to the high base effect and weak consumption capacity and willingness among middle- and low-income groups over the coming months, Wu Chaoming, chief economist of Hunan Chasing Financial Holdings, told Yicai.

However, as price recovery helps improve employment and income, the drag from the real estate market eases, and the wealth effect from capital markets repairs household balance sheets, coupled with the implementation of comprehensive policies to boost consumption, retail sales growth will likely moderately recover this year, with annual growth possibly reaching around 4.5 percent and service consumption likely achieving an even higher growth rate, Wu pointed out.

Editor: Martin Kadiev