Summer spending boom showcases China's service consumption potential

BEIJING -- The summer spending frenzy in China, marked by notable consumption growth in tourism, entertainment and sports, has demonstrated service consumption's expansion potential and its contribution to the overall economic development of the country.

This summer, China hosted around 37,000 cultural and tourism events spanning over 4,000 categories, catering to popular interests such as night tours, summer getaways and family-friendly excursions, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Data from online travel services provider Ctrip shows a stable rise of the country's domestic tourism market, with internet searches for hotels and flight tickets up more than 20 percent year on year.

Domestic car rental orders increased by more than 40 percent year on year, and the single-day order volume hit a historic high on Ctrip with an increase of 50 percent year on year. The average car rental cost rose 20 percent compared to last summer.

The robust demand for car rentals mirrors the surge in travel during the summer vacation, said Song Zhen, vice president of Ctrip Group, adding that the self-driving tourism market is gaining popularity especially in northwest China.

The country's box office also heated up in the summer, surpassing the 10-billion-yuan (about $1.4 billion) mark over the weekend, according to ticketing platform data.

Chinese consumers have become more interested in splashing the cash on sporting activities this summer, buoyed by the just-concluded Paris Olympic Games.

Data from the e-commerce platform Meituan shows that in July, the search volume for sports activities increased by around 180 percent from June. The order volume for badminton grew by 90 percent from a year earlier, and the group purchase order volume related to tennis sports surged by 172 percent.

A State Council guideline coming out amid the summer heat has set out 20 key tasks for developing service consumption, including tapping the potential of services like hospitality, domestic services, elderly care and tourism, fostering new types of consumption and consumption scenarios, relaxing market access, and providing more policy support for service consumption.

Experts have expressed optimism on the service consumption expansion in China, noting that demand for services like education, entertainment, tourism and culture is on the rise as China moves toward the high-income stage.

"China's next round of reform priorities, including increasing national income levels with reasonable distribution policies, continuing the urbanization process, as well as improving social insurance, education and medical systems, promise greater demand for service consumption," said Zhu Min, former deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

Official data show that in the first half of the year, China's retail sales of services increased 7.5 percent from a year ago, 4.3 percentage points higher than that of goods, while service consumption accounted for 45.6 percent of the country's per capita consumer spending.

According to a tone-setting meeting on priorities for the second half of 2024 in late July, service consumption will be a major driver in the expansion and upgrading of consumption.