In full bloom

Records are set to be broken as the Chinese New Year travel season gets under way tomorrow with hundreds of millions of people on the move to destinations within the mainland as well as overseas.

The mass migration is expected to boost the fortunes of key players and send their stocks up in the near term, say analysts.

The trend this year is toward experiential tourism with a focus on "intangible cultural heritage," with travelers from the south seeking winter thrills and northerners seeking warmer getaways, reports indicate.

For the uninitiated, intangible cultural heritage includes everything that's part of one's culture, from arts and crafts to festivals and food, to dance and drama and even one's language.

The trend has also gained momentum on the back of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization last month adding the Spring Festival - as the Chinese New Year is popularly known - to its Intangible Cultural Heritage List.

RECORD NUMBERS

The predictions so far are promising.

State-run CGTN forecasts a record 9 billion trips will made during the Chunyun - the Chinese word for the travel rush - which runs for 40 days until February 22.

This would be 7 percent higher than last year's number, it says.

Rail and plane trips are also expected to set new records at 510 million and 90 million respectively, with the Civil Aviation Administration of China set to handle an average of 18,500 flights per day, up 8.4 percent from the 2024 level.

INTANGIBLE ATTRACTIONS

Ticketing data indicates a sharp rise in demand for northern ice-and-snow destinations like Harbin, Changchun and Urumqi, as well as warmer ones in the south such as Haikou and Sanya, according to the CAAC's transport department head Xu Qing.

Ctrip, which is part of online travel giant Trip.com (9961), says bookings for Harbin are up 32 percent while those for Kunming, Fuzhou and Xiamen in the south have increased by 18 percent, 30 percent, and 16 percent year-on-year, respectively.

Beijing is set to be the top destination for cultural tourism, a report by the China Association of Travel Services and Tuniu.com indicates, with visitors flocking to its museums and temple fairs.

And surefire cultural attractions such as the Yingge Dance that originated from Guangdong province and the Guangdong Lion Dance will continue to be crowd pullers.

Meanwhile, posts about "iron flower" shows - the traditional art of throwing molten iron into the air to create fireworks - and zan hua wei - flower headbands worn by women in Fujian province - have gone viral amid the frenzy over intangible cultural heritage.

Other popular destinations include the massive Grand Tang All Day Mall in Xian which is spread over an area of six blocks and 650,000 square feet, and the heritage town of Wuzhen in Zhejiang province.

An architectural tribute to the famous Tang Dynasty that ruled China from 618 to 907 AD, the mall is an outdoor shopping, dining and cultural destination.

Its 1,500-meter-long pedestrian street runs from the Big Wild Goose Pagoda in the north to the ruins of the Tang city wall in the south and is a magnet for young and old cosplayers who dress up in traditional attire from that era.

Wuzhen lies south of the Yangtze River and is billed as "the last riverine town in China" with well preserved dwellings that were mostly built during the Qing Dynasty.

It also holds winter tavern theme nights where visitors read or listen to poems from famous hometown scholar and artist Mu Xin over a glass of wine or more.

Wuzhen made a net profit of 265 million yuan in the first three quarters of 2024, according to state-owned travel agency CYTS, which runs the town.

But not all destinations will rejoicing.

Dayong City, a theme town built to represent ancient China by Shenzhen-listed Zhangjiajie Tourism at a cost of 2.5 billion yuan, has raked up losses of 500 million yuan (HK$532.2 million) since it opened in 2021, pushing its operator to the brink of bankruptcy.

The sprawling city in Zhangjiajie includes Sanyuan Palace and a Taoist temple built in 1799 within its walls, but its streets, houses and theaters are newly built.

And China's culture vultures have scorned it for a lack of authenticity, flocking instead to the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, where the blockbuster Avatar was filmed.

The park averaged only 13 ticket buyers a day in the first six months of last year and most of its attractions remain closed, Nikkei reports.

There are lessons to be learned from failures like Dayong City, analysts say.

Traditional culture tourism is no longer just about visiting historical places but creating new trends, says Trip.com researcher Shen Jiani, adding that tourists no longer want to be spectators but participants.

OPEN DOORS

International arrivals have also shot up after China eased visa rules for foreigners at the end of 2023, with the number of foreign tourists surging by more than 86 percent year-on-year in the first 11 months of 2024 to 29.2 million.

Trip.com reports that the number of hotels and air tickets booked through its overseas platform rose nearly 60 percent in 2024.

And with China further relaxing visa-free transit rules for travelers from 54 countries from the original 72-144 hours to 240 hours or 10 days last month, analysts are upbeat about prospects for tourism players, even though the markets in Hong Kong and China have got off to a bad start in 2025.

Fulbright Financial associate director Stevan Tam believes the peak winter season and eased visa rules will further benefit tourism stocks.

Trip.com shares rose 95 percent in 2024 and hit a record HK$586 on December 12, but the stock since eased back to HK$498. While growth has already been priced in, investors should build positions in the travel platform frontrunner if it falls below HK$500, Tam says.

Rival Tongcheng Travel (0780) also hit a record HK$22 in May but has since fallen to HK$17.74. Still, it is up nearly 12 percent year -on-year.

AVIATION UPSWING

Hantec Wealth Management general manager Patrick Yiu Ho-yin says the outlook for the airlines is promising and believes Cathay Pacific Airways (0293) will trend higher, citing its business levels and attractive dividend yields.

Cathay Pacific has risen 30 percent over the past year and the stock's bucked the broader market downturn in the new year, rising 10 percent in 2025 to HK$10.46.

Among mainland airlines this year, Air China (0753) is 7 percent down at HK$4.71, while China Eastern Airlines (0670) and China Southern Airlines (1055) are down by 7 percent and 10 percent at HK2.41 and HK$3.70 respectively.

Goldman Sachs expects the China's outbound and inbound travel to grow this year, boosting travel platforms, hotels and airlines.

The bank predicts China's travel, leisure and transportation stocks will stabilize from the end of the first quarter, and valuations of hotels and airlines are expected to recover.