Catering, accommodation lead holiday consumption

Shanghai saw stable consumption during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, with catering and accommodation leading the growth.

According to data collected by the city's Consumer Market Big Data Laboratory, overall consumption during the three-day holiday from June 21 to 23 was generally stable, with the offline consumption payment amount reaching approximately 18 billion yuan (US$2.5 billion) in the city.

The catering and accommodation sectors showed a more significant growth. The payment amount for catering was 2.78 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 104.4 percent, while payment for accommodation rose 31.3 percent from last year's holiday to 1.32 billion yuan.

The total offline customer traffic in 35 key commercial districts reached 13.72 million, surging 1.5 times compared with the same period in 2022, and basically remained the same as the same holiday period in 2019.

Big data monitoring by China UnionPay Merchant Services Co showed that the consumption amount of consumers from outside the city added up to 7.97 billion yuan, with 6.319 million transactions, up 2.7 times and 2.3 times respectively compared with last year's holiday period. This is a year-on-year increase of 22.8 percent and 18.9 percent separately compared with the same holiday in 2019.

A higher proportion of consumption from outside the city came from the Yangtze River Delta region. Tourists from Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces posted the highest consumption frequency, accounting for 16.1 percent, 8.5 percent and 8.3 percent.

The city's folk marketing activities have also helped to boost sales during the holiday, according to the Shanghai Commission of Commerce.

Various commercial enterprises in the city have launched a series of fascinating activities during this year's Dragon Boat Festival. For instance, the Shanghai New World Daimaru department store held a promotion offering discounts, coupons and selected products, with the sales soaring by 1.7 times from a year earlier.

Similarly, Yuyuan Garden Malls hosted the fourth session of its Kunqu festival to showcase Kunqu Opera. This is one of the oldest extant forms of Chinese opera.

National treasure-level Kunqu performers and outstanding young actors gathered to present a stunning Kunqu performance of "Six Records of a Floating Life," resulting in a 3.7-time increase in sales compared to the same period in 2022.