Tongue Scalded by Hot Delicacies, Spring Festival Consumption Sparks a Wave of Enthusiasm

Financial Times Reporter Cao Chen

The 2026 Spring Festival holiday has concluded, and the consumer markets for dining, travel, and transportation are performing strongly, marking a steady start to the Year of the Horse.

On February 23, Meituan data showed that local specialty foods have become an important choice for travelers. During the Spring Festival, searches for must-eat restaurants increased by 60% compared to before the holiday. Fliggy data indicated that domestic travel bookings during the holiday set new records, with ticket bookings up over 80% year-on-year and hotel room nights up 75%. Qunar Travel data showed that travelers stayed at hotels in over a thousand counties nationwide, with many locations experiencing explosive growth in hotel occupancy.

During the holiday, the Financial Times reporter visited several well-known restaurants in Beijing and found that reservations for New Year’s Eve and Spring Festival gatherings were exceptionally popular. Staff at the Yutings Bridge branch of the historic Peking Duck restaurant Bianyifang said all reservations from New Year’s Eve to the fifth day of the first lunar month were fully booked more than two weeks in advance. A company representative from Bianyifang told reporters that all New Year’s Eve seats at Beijing locations were booked, with reservation rates exceeding 90% from the second to the fifth day of the lunar new year.

Local specialty foods have become a key part of travel choices. Meituan data shows that Shantou, Luoyang, Xuzhou, Changsha, and Xiamen are the top five “taste tour” destinations, driving local restaurants to be “hard to find a seat.”

Notably, the market for pre-made New Year’s Eve dinner dishes continued to heat up this year, with various family banquet gift boxes and specialty pre-made dishes reaching peak sales. Leading catering and food companies are actively expanding in this sector.

In January, Quanjude announced on its investor interaction platform that during the Spring Festival, the company would launch a multi-channel marketing campaign combining online and offline efforts, with the New Year’s goods festival already underway. The company has developed over 30 product lines, with new products making up 50%, including heritage craft-made family banquet gift boxes, deli gift boxes, and trendy marinated snack foods like “Good Luck Sign,” suitable for family dinners, gifts, and corporate benefits.

Qianwei Central Kitchen recently stated that it is actively expanding into the consumer market, launching popular products in collaboration with internet celebrity brands or IPs, and planning for Spring Festival banquet scene products. The company is closely monitoring new market trends and will explore co-creation, scene-based customization, and other models to continue developing its pre-made dishes business through 2026.

Fresh produce e-commerce platforms are also intensifying efforts in the Spring Festival dinner market. Reporters learned that Dingdong Maicai’s Quick Cook division launched 72 New Year’s dishes themed “Home Flavor・New Year Flavor,” covering eight major series including hearty dishes, home-style stir-fries, appetizers, and fried foods.

A Dingdong Maicai executive told reporters that quick-cook dishes are not about “taking shortcuts,” but reflect a redefinition of the New Year’s dinner by the younger generation—reducing cooking complexity to spend more time with family and rest. This consumer shift is becoming a new intergenerational consensus.

Like the catering market, the holiday travel and transportation market is booming. Family trips have become a major driver of Spring Festival cultural and tourism consumption.

According to Meituan Travel data, during the holiday, bookings for family tickets increased significantly year-on-year, with Meituan users “traveling further and exploring more deeply.”

On February 23, Fliggy data showed that domestic travel bookings during the Spring Festival set new records, with higher travel frequency, richer activities, and continued growth in per capita tourism spending. The average per-person booking amount for domestic trips during the holiday increased by about 10% compared to last year, with high-star hotels averaging nearly three nights per booking; popular theme park and scenic spot packages including accommodation and entertainment saw a 140% year-on-year increase in orders.

During the holiday, Wanda Hotels & Resorts’ properties hosted over 370,000 guests, a 17% increase from last year, reaching a new high, with RevPAR (revenue per available room) steadily rising. Hotels in Yunnan, Hainan, Jilin, and Fujian performed especially well, becoming the “traffic drivers” of Spring Festival tourism.

Looking at travel activities during the holiday, Tuniu released the “2026 Spring Festival Travel Consumption Report,” showing that experiential tourism activities such as intangible cultural heritage tours, folk customs, large markets, temple fairs, and lantern festivals—carrying “New Year flavor”—saw significant growth and became popular choices for tourists seeking festive atmosphere and local flavor.

The report also highlighted that a number of “small and beautiful” small towns and counties, with their unique customs, authentic cuisine, and distinctive cultures, gained popularity and became new trends in Spring Festival travel. Destinations like Baoting and Dehong saw visitor numbers more than double compared to last year’s holiday; other places such as Chaozhou, Yanbian, Shantou, Nanping, Heze, Ningde, Liangshan, and Jingdezhen experienced more than double the usual number of travelers compared to the same period last year.

(Edited by: Wen Jing)

Keywords: Consumption