Extended holiday witnessed a consumption boom in tourism, retail, catering and box office, with senior tourists driving the spending.
China saw 195 million tourists during the four-day holiday that ended on Saturday, a year-on-year increase of 13.7 percent, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The surge of travelers pushed tourism revenue to almost 117.67 billion yuan ($17.5 billion) nationwide, a 16.1 percent increase over last year.
During this year's May Day holiday, one day longer than that in 2018, visitors' footprint spread to 903 destinations across the world, according to online travel service Ctrip. Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Chongqing were the top five tourist source cities.
Beijing saw highest consumption both in inbound and outbound tourism, and per capita consumption in outbound tourism surpassed 7,000 yuan, followed by Dalian, Taiyuan, Xi'an and Shanghai.
Ctrip said more than half of its May Day holiday clients were tourists born in the 1980s and 1990s. In contrast, clients born in the 1960s and 1970s accounted for only 27 percent. However, those born in the 1950s were the highest spenders, with per capita spending of 3,629 yuan.
Beijing, Xiamen, Chongqing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Kunming, Guangzhou and Guiyang were the top 10 most visited domestic cities during the holiday.
Expo economy created new highlight for local consumption, said Zhao Ping from the research department of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.
In Beijing, the just-opened Beijing International Horticultural Exhibition became an important tourist attraction and consumption spotlight; while in Guangzhou, the Southern China International Auto show drove the auto consumption, Zhao added.
Around 341,300 tourists visited Beijing International Horticultural Exhibition during the four-day May Day holiday, the organizer said Sunday. On May 2 and 3, the number of tourists surpassed 100,000.
During the holiday, 60 major monitored retailers and catering businesses achieved sales of 3.22 billion yuan in Beijing, up 6.5 percent year-on-year. In Shanghai, more than 300 retailers and catering businesses raked in 4.69 billion yuan in sales from May 1-4, an increase of 15.5 percent year-on-year.
China's box office reaped 1.5 billion yuan, according to China Movie Data Information Network. Over the past three years, the ticket sales during the May Day holiday were 658 million yuan, 775 million yuan and 999 million yuan in 2016, 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Holiday tourism also boosted travel-related markets, with the sales volume of travel insurance jumping 14.4 percent from a year earlier, data from China's leading retailer Suning showed.
Data from Suning also showed a boom in food consumption during the holiday. Sales volume of beer saw the highest growth of 716 percent year-on-year, followed by 433 percent in snacks and 246 percent in crawfish.