Chinese cross-border trips beat pre-COVID level during major holiday

SHANGHAI (Reuters) — China’s inbound and outbound trips surged during the eight-day Golden Week holiday this year, official data showed on Saturday, beating pre-pandemic levels but lower than an earlier government estimate.

The average number of inbound and outbound passenger trips a day reached 1.477 million during the longer-than-normal break, as the Mid-Autumn festival coincided with the National Day holiday this year, which ended on Friday, the National Immigration Administration said.

That represents an 85.1% increase from the same period in 2019, and nearly quadruple the 2022 average, the administration said. It had earlier said it expected an average of 1.58 million daily inbound and outbound passenger trips during the holiday.

The rebound in international travel by Chinese tourists will be a boon to many tourism-dependent businesses around the world.

Before COVID-19, mainland…