The Spring Festival is a traditional holiday and also a peak season for consumption. This year's Spring Festival holiday has increased to 8 days, and New Year's Eve has also been included as a statutory holiday, bringing new opportunities for expanding consumption. This Spring Festival, not only has traditional consumption such as catering and cultural tourism been vibrant, but new consumption has also been highlighted. Policies to promote consumption, such as purchasing subsidies, have added fuel to the market. The holiday market presents a thriving new year, reflecting the resilience and vitality of the Chinese economy. More than 2.3 billion people traveled, movie box office exceeded 9.5 billion yuan, and dining consumption reached its peak... From the snowy countryside in the north to the coast of the South China Sea, from popular urban commercial districts to the streets and alleys of county towns, there is a rising atmosphere of fireworks everywhere. The Spring Festival holiday in 2025 is not only full of festive atmosphere, but also presents a strong sense of warmth and many new ideas in the consumer market. Lin Meng, Director of the Modern Supply Chain Research Institute at the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, said, "We have upgraded commodity consumption, expanded service consumption, and innovated consumption scenarios to further enhance the overall consumption environment. These practical policies have effectively promoted the real growth of consumption during the traditional consumption peak season of the Spring Festival." At sea, China's first domestically produced cruise ship, the "Aida Magic City", is dressed in the "Shining Chinese Red" livery, embarking on a Snake Year New Year themed voyage, and carefully designed entertainment projects to create a Chinese New Year flavor on the sea. At the first Chinese New Year Science and Technology Temple Fair held in Beijing, more than 70 artificial intelligence companies created over 100 AI and robot interactive scenes in shopping malls. This Spring Festival, many traditional photo studios have launched customized family portrait packages for the Year of the Snake, providing personalized one-stop services from makeup, clothing, props, photo editing, and album production. In addition, professional photographers taking family photos on-site has become a popular service. Huang Weiting, Deputy Director of the Decision making Consulting Department of the Macroeconomic Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, said, "Spring Festival consumption is a concentrated presentation of the entire economic and social development. We have seen the outbreak of many new consumption growth points and more diverse consumption demands. Behind it is actually a support, which is the vast national characteristics of China and the scale effect of our economy as the world's second largest. It can provide more options for diversified consumption demands." In December 2024, Spring Festival was officially listed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. With the successful application for World Heritage status during the Spring Festival, "New Year's Flavor Tour" has become the mainstream choice for travel this year. Many consumers welcome the Spring Festival in a more traditional and authentic way. Since 2024, the popularity of Shanxi's cultural and tourism industry has continued to rise, with ancient architecture attractions and museums becoming the most popular check-in spots for this Spring Festival. At the Jinci Museum, visitors are no longer just watching dragon dance performances as usual, but are personally involved in experiencing and getting close to traditional intangible cultural heritage projects. This year's Spring Festival cultural and tourism market is very popular. According to data from travel platforms, the search volume for "intangible cultural heritage" during the Spring Festival holiday increased by 212% year-on-year, the search volume for "intangible cultural heritage experience" increased by 387%, and the search volume for "intangible cultural heritage handicrafts" increased by 790%. Traditional intangible cultural heritage experiences are deeply loved by young tourists, and nearly 40% of intangible cultural heritage searchers are "post-2000s". It is worth noting that during this year's Spring Festival, a number of newly constructed transportation arteries, including the Shenzhen Zhongshan Expressway and the Shanghai Suzhou Hunan high-speed railway, welcomed their first Spring Festival travel rush after opening. The narrowing of the distance between cities has made cross city consumption, which involves two-way interaction, thrive in a unique way. According to data from travel platforms, nearly 70% of travelers chose to travel across cities during this year's Spring Festival, which is twice as many as last year's Spring Festival. Huang Weiting: "Taking the Spring Festival tourism consumption market as an example, we can see that it is no longer just a fancy tourist experience, but more of an experiential and interactive one. In addition to the previously focused tourism, such as the large-scale flow between the north and south, micro travel and micro vacation in surrounding cities through transportation arteries and urban agglomerations have become a hot topic this year." With the continuous expansion of the "240 hour transit visa free policy" and "visa free friend circle", inbound tourism has also become a major highlight of this year's Spring Festival consumption market. The main ports of entry such as Beijing, Shanghai and the Great Bay Area ushered in the peak of overseas passenger flow. According to the data from the online tourism platform, the number of foreigners coming to China for the Spring Festival this year increased by 1.5 times year-on-year. Under the new visa free policy, cross provincial and in-depth tourism has become a new trend for foreigners to travel in China. Data shows that the number of rural tourism orders from overseas increased by 71% in 2024 compared to the previous year. Since January this year alone, the number of foreign tourists visiting Wuzhen Scenic Area has reached 15000, which is three times that of the same period last year. In order to further enhance the travel experience of foreign tourists in Zhangjiajie Scenic Area, Hunan Province, Zhangjiajie Scenic Area has further optimized the payment methods for foreign tourists since last year. Tourists can directly pay by card when purchasing tickets and shopping in the scenic area. At the same time, the scenic area has also introduced catering institutions that are more in line with the taste of foreign tourists, providing diversified catering services for tourists. Lin Meng: "A series of comprehensive policies have enabled consumers, including foreign consumers, to feel that we are striving to create a global tourism, globally friendly, and age friendly consumption and tourism environment when traveling in China. We have also focused on promoting the internationalization of our country's tourism market." During the Spring Festival in 2025, in addition to popular tourist attractions and business districts, cinemas will also be crowded with people. This year's Spring Festival season has gathered six domestic films, covering various genres such as mythology, war, comedy, and suspense. According to statistics from the National Film Administration, the box office for the Spring Festival in 2025 will be 9.51 billion yuan, with 187 million moviegoers, an increase of 18.64% and 14.68% year-on-year, respectively. Constantly introducing new film technologies and constantly updating viewing environments make watching movies a pleasure. During the Spring Festival in 2025, multiple cities across the country will introduce film consumption subsidy policies. For example, Guangdong, Beijing, and Jiangsu have distributed movie consumption vouchers worth 38 million yuan, 33 million yuan, and 25 million yuan respectively to benefit audiences and enhance their viewing experience. In addition, activities such as "following movies to enjoy delicious food" and "following movies to travel" continue to be popular, fully promoting the mutual driving force of consumption. The Spring Festival movie "Fengshen Part II: War in the Western Qi" is full of elements of Yin and Shang culture, making the ancient capital Anyang once again "popular". Local scenic spots fully tap into the characteristics of Shang culture, integrating elements of Yin Shang into cultural and tourism projects such as markets, performances, exhibitions, etc., allowing tourists to immerse themselves in the charming Shang civilization while playing. Before this year's Spring Festival, the "trade in" policy for consumer goods was expanded, and subsidy policies for purchasing new products such as smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches were implemented nationwide. This is also the first time that the "trade in" policy for consumer goods has encountered the Spring Festival holiday. With the strengthening of the policy, many home appliance and digital stores have launched a "revitalization" trend, further releasing the vitality of Spring Festival consumption. Mobile phones, digital products, and home appliances have become popular new New Year's goods. According to the policy, individual consumers who purchase digital products such as mobile phones, tablets, smart watches, and wristbands with a unit price not exceeding 6000 yuan will receive a subsidy of 15% of the final sales price of the product. Enterprise discounts and the launch of additional discounts for linked brands have fully unleashed consumers' purchasing power. This Spring Festival, not only are digital products selling well, but the home appliance market also has a good start. This year's new policy includes products such as water purifiers and dishwashers in the subsidy scope, and six departments including the Ministry of Commerce have also introduced the 2025 home decoration kitchen and bathroom "revitalization" policy before the Spring Festival holiday. According to retail platform data, not only in first tier cities, but also in third - and fourth tier cities and rural households, more and more people choose to trade in during the Spring Festival, and the overall year-on-year growth of related "trade in" orders exceeds 100%. Huang Weiting: "From the perspective of policy design, we adhere to the concept of putting consumers first and taking the needs of the people as the starting point. The combination of central financial support, local support, and business support is also very substantial for the people. When the people buy consumer goods through 'trade in', both the procedures and the convenience of online operations have been greatly improved. The overall effect is to let the people know that there is such a preferential policy, and they can enjoy it more conveniently." When determining the key tasks for 2025, the Central Economic Work Conference listed "vigorously boosting consumption, improving investment efficiency, and expanding domestic demand in all aspects" as the top priority. Propose to implement a more proactive fiscal policy by 2025, emphasizing the need to "pay more attention to benefiting people's livelihoods, promoting consumption, and increasing momentum". The consumption boom at the beginning of the new year is just the beginning. With the continuous implementation of various policies this year, the efforts and effects of expanding domestic demand and boosting consumption in 2025 are even more worth looking forward to. Lin Meng: "Expanding consumption in 2025 will definitely be the stabilizer and booster for us to promote and support the stable growth of the entire national economy. In this process, consumption plays a more fundamental and guiding role through consumption traction. By using consumption traction and guidance to find the right investment direction, the efficiency of investment guidance will be further improved, and the relationship between total demand and total supply proposed by the central government during deployment will be coordinated, thus achieving the role of a driving force to support the sustained growth of the entire national economy." Amidst the hustle and bustle of the world, the flavor of the New Year is strong. In clothing, food, housing, and transportation, one can glimpse the vigorous vitality and energy of the Chinese economy. The Spring Festival is not only a time to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new, but also a starting point for looking forward to the future. The prosperous scene of the consumer market proves that with the upgrading of consumer demand, new consumer formats are gradually becoming popular. Realizing the expansion and quality improvement of consumer demand, as well as the diversification of consumption scenarios, undoubtedly helps to better leverage the advantages of China's super large market, stabilize market expectations, and promote the healthy and orderly operation of the national economy. (New Society)