COTRI forecasts seven million outbound trips for Chinese New Year 2020

The last week of January 2020 will see the annual Golden Week travel mayhem connected with the Chinese New Year festive season in China. With the year of the Yang Metal Rat, a new cycle of the Chinese calendar starts on January 24th, making hundreds of millions of Chinese travelling within the country for family reunions.

In 2019, about 6.3 million Chinese choose to rather travel to destinations outside Mainland China. COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute predicts that in 2020 for the first time more than seven million trips will be made across the border. Due to the political and safety difficulties in Taiwan and Hong Kong, the market share of medium- and long haul destinations will increase further. More than half of all trips will go beyond “Greater China.”

The combination of the Yang principle, the element Metal, and the zodiac sign Rat looks for the uninitiated observer rather menacing. However, most Chinese astrologers agree that 2020 will be more peaceful than the Yin Earth Pig Year 2019. Let us hope their prediction is as likely to become true as the COTRI forecast for the number of Chinese outbound travellers.

Photo by Vlad Chețan from Pexels