During this year's Spring Festival holiday, the tourism market continued the hot trend of last year and continued to recover, demonstrating the important role of the tourism industry in gathering popularity, promoting consumption, and helping growth. Although the tourism industry is agile, it has a huge and rapidly expanding scale, becoming a new engine for the sustained improvement and vitality of China's economy. Its several trend characteristics are worth paying attention to. Firstly, tourism consumption is gradually recovering, and the increase in supply further promotes the release of demand. This year's Spring Festival tourism expenses have continued to increase. According to Fliggy data, the average consumption of domestic tourists during the Spring Festival period has increased by nearly 10% compared to last year. In terms of total expenditure, the total travel expenses of domestic tourists in 2024 were 5.75 trillion yuan, an increase of 0.84 trillion yuan from the previous year, a year-on-year increase of 17.1%. From the perspective of per capita consumption, the per capita tourism consumption during the Spring Festival in 2024 will be 1335 yuan, a decrease of 10% compared to the same period in 2019, while the per capita tourism consumption during the National Day holiday will be 1326 yuan, an increase of 10.2% compared to the same period in 2019. This comparison shows that the tourism industry is showing a trend of development from recovery to enterprise stability. In 2024, the passenger transport volume of civil aviation tourism is expected to reach 730 million, a year-on-year increase of 17.7%. The stock scale of hotels has also expanded, and ticket and hotel prices have fallen, further stimulating the enthusiasm of the whole nation for tourism. Secondly, there is still room for growth in some tourism markets, and the potential demand of key groups is gradually being released. Looking at urban and rural areas, the number of urban residents traveling in 2024 was 4.37 billion, a year-on-year increase of 16.3%, while the number of rural residents traveling was 1.245 billion, a year-on-year increase of 9.9%; The tourism expenditure of urban residents was 4.93 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.0%, while that of rural residents was 0.83 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.2%. This indicates that the release pace of urban and rural tourism demand is different, and the rural tourism market still has potential development momentum. The demand for tourism presents characteristics consistent with changes in population structure, with a strong potential demand from the silver haired group who have savings and time, and the energetic and exploratory young students. According to Ctrip data, over 30% of the silver haired population will travel twice as frequently in 2024 as in 2019; According to Fliggy data, nearly 60% of self driving trips are taken by people born in the 1990s and 2000s, while the number of car rental travel orders for people born in the 2000s has increased fivefold year-on-year. Thirdly, the tourism market is showing a hierarchical development, with a clear trend of comprehensive and full-time tourism. In 2024, as the frequency of population mobility increases, the tourism market will show a hierarchical development trend. Currently, some traditional tourists are concentrated in tourist cities, popular scenic spots, and key experiential projects, while others integrate tourism into family visits, business, and cultural activities, and spend their weekends in different places. The supply entities and consumption scenarios of the tourism industry have also shifted from scenic spots to the streets and alleys, integrating into all aspects of the life service industry, with obvious generalization characteristics, promoting the development of the tourism market towards a comprehensive trend of the whole nation, the whole region, and the whole time. In addition, outbound tourism is a competitive choice for domestic tourism, while inbound tourism is a strong support for the domestic market. The development trend of inbound and outbound tourism is also worth paying attention to. According to Ctrip data, outbound tourism has continued to be popular in recent years. Apart from tourists from first - and second tier cities, the scale of outbound tourism from third - and fourth tier cities has grown rapidly, forming a certain diversion to the domestic tourism market. Inbound tourism has also experienced a rebound. With favorable policies such as visa facilitation, increasing number of visa free countries, and the new policy of 240 hour transit visa free, inbound tourism tickets and hotel orders increased by 180% and 60% respectively year-on-year during this year's Spring Festival. Ctrip's inbound tourism orders doubled year-on-year. Overseas tourists are still mainly Asian neighbors and "regular customers", with over 25% of international tourists visiting China multiple times. China's vast tourism market still has space, capacity, and potential for global tourists. The Central Economic Work Conference proposed to innovate diversified consumption scenarios, expand service consumption, and promote the development of cultural tourism industry. In the future, cultural tourism is expected to become a pillar industry of the national economy. Driven by the 'happy GDP', the importance of the 'emotional economy' is becoming increasingly prominent, and there is still a lot of work to be done in various regions when planning the tourism market in 2025. On the one hand, we need to promote the integration of culture and tourism and enrich the consumer experience. As the first "intangible cultural heritage" Spring Festival in the Year of the Snake, many places have launched "intangible cultural heritage tours", which not only promote and inherit the local traditional cultural heritage, but also achieve the function of uniting people's hearts and gathering popularity. Some traditional tourism cities can transition from natural landscapes to consumption scenes such as humanistic services, and add local cultural customs, China-Chic, new trends and other elements to increase tourists' stickiness. On the other hand, we need to strengthen the guarantee of tourism infrastructure. In 2025, the film market and self driving travel will be booming during the Spring Festival. In line with the trend of the tourism market developing in a comprehensive and full-time manner, tourist destination cities need to upgrade their comprehensive service capabilities, increase the guarantee of corresponding tourism infrastructure such as cinemas and parking lots, and achieve "supply based on demand" in various service facilities such as catering, leisure, cultural entertainment, etc., to promote the comprehensive upgrading of regional service industries driven by the tourism industry. (Xinhua News Agency) Author: Li Lu (Researcher at the Institute of Social Development, China Academy of Macroeconomics)