Honoring the Cherished and Ancient Tradition of Analyzing Post-CNY Statistics

Now that the haze of gunpowder and fireworks have cleared from the sky, red packet scraps have been swept off the streets, and the warring states of dumplings and baijiu are no longer vying for supremacy in your stomach, it’s time to engage with that other cherished Spring Festival tradition – analyzing post-holiday stats!

Unfortunately, this year’s annual migration was once again highly discouraged due to the ongoing pandemic, made even more prescient by a rise in local transmissions in recent weeks. Despite taking it easy, however, Beijingers still logged some pretty impressive numbers. Likewise, a couple of coronavirus cases in Shunyi and Daxing weren’t enough to keep folks from visiting the capital. In fact, according to Beijing’s Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, the city saw 6.6 million tourists over the past week, with revenue topping RMB 4.25 billion, rounding out an 81.7 percent recovery of 2019’s figures. (We can all probably agree that 2020’s figures are a wash.)

Meanwhile, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce announced that across 100 industries surveyed including department stores, supermarkets, restaurants, and e-commerce sites, consumers doled out a whopping RMB 5.47 billion, allegedly the largest amount spent in the past three years. The same report also mentioned that to ensure the viability of food supply chains, the government “put 1,000 tons of frozen pork and 800 tons of eggs on the market.” This may not be the most critical of information, but it sure does boggle the mind to imagine that many eggs.

Anyway… What else did your fellow city-dwellers get up to during their break? Well, given that a number of parks were free to enjoy between Feb 11-17, many people did precisely that, with Temple of Heaven hosting the largest number of visitors (248,700), followed by Summer Palace (204,300) and the Forbidden City (173,000). Incidentally, it seems as though capitalism is preferable to ancient history, as Wangfujing topped the list of attractions with 895,000 visitors, more than Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, and Forbidden City combined. (Okay, maybe it has more to do with the fact that no one has to reserve tickets to visit Wangfujing, nor is there a limit on the number of people who can visit, but that’s not nearly as fun to write). All told, despite the chilly weather and smoggy days, 7.81 million people enjoyed 147 scenic spots in Beijing, or 83.8 percent of 2019 Spring Festival totals. Of course, it’s all about the bottom line, and these scenic spots raked in a combined RMB 612 million, according to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism.

Unfortunately, however, all good things must come to an end, and so we wave goodbye to another week of Spring Festival shenanigans. Fear not though, it’s only about six more weeks until we get another day off – Monday, Apr 5 – for Tomb Sweeping. You got this, Beijingers!

READ: Fireworks Were Banned, So What Was With the CNY Smog?

Images: Zhang Kayiv (via Unsplash)