Super Golden Week 2025: Chinese Outbound Travel

China celebrated a “super Golden Week” from 1-8 October, with an extra-long, eight-day public holiday for the country’s National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival. We’ve rounded up all the information on Chinese outbound travel over the holiday as of 9 October, and will continue to update this post as new reports and data are released.

According to official data from China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Chinese travelers made 888 million domestic trips over the holiday period, an increase of 123 million from last year. Domestic travel spending reached 809 trillion RMB, an increase of more than 108 trillion from last year.

The results of the holiday for outbound travel are starting to come out now, though it might be too early to know the full impact of the holiday period. Flight booking data shared by ForwardKeys ahead of the holiday showed that “many travelers are turning this into an extended getaway of over ten days by combining weekends with the official leave.” As of 8 September, bookings for the holiday period were 28% ahead of last year, and 1% ahead of pre-pandemic levels, said ForwardKeys.

China’s National Immigration Authority forecast around 2 million daily border crossings during the holiday, up from 1.87 million last year. As of 9 October, official border crossing data hasn’t been released yet, although the China Tourism Academy mentioned that inbound and outbound trips reached “historic highs”.

Ctrip’s Golden Week data, released on 8 October, showed that the top five international destinations were all within Asia: Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, and Singapore. In-depth European travel showed impressive growth, with traveler numbers to Norway and Iceland doubling year-on-year, and increases of around 70% for Spain, Italy, and Germany. Ctrip told Chinese news agency Xinhua that 30% of outbound travel bookings for Golden Week were for Europe.

Bookings on Ctrip for chauffeured travel overseas saw gains of around 120%, and up to 180% in Japan, where Chinese driver’s licenses are not recognized. The demand for private chauffeur services in Sri Lanka grew by 300%.

There were reports around the world of destinations crowded with Chinese tourists, particularly Norway’s Lofoten Islands, which experienced unprecedented traffic jams because of the number of Chinese tourists.

Tongcheng reported that long-distance group tours during the holiday nearly doubled compared to last year, with bookings for European tours by residents of lower-tier cities up by 130% year on year, and group tour bookings for the Americas up by 32%.

According to Fliggy’s post-holiday report, the top 10 outbound destinations were Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, France, Australia, the United States, and Indonesia.

The number of Qunar customers flying overseas on the first day of China’s Golden Week holiday – 1 October – increased by more than 50% year on year, reported the OTA. The top destinations were Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

Japan’s popularity shows no sign of ending, while Thailand continues to struggle, despite being one of the holiday’s top international destinations. According to the Tourism Authority of Thailand, there were 3.3 million Chinese arrivals from 1 January to 22 September 2025, a 35% year-on-year decline. Thailand forecast 200k Chinese visitors during Golden Week, a -24% decline from 2024, with a -17% decline in revenue from Chinese tourism, down to 9.1 billion baht. Chinese arrivals to Thailand during Golden Week peaked on 1 and 2 October, with around 20,000 per day – Chinese arrivals did not reach more than 20,000 on any other day of the holiday period.