May 1 Travel Edition: Top outbound destinations ✈️, Luxury buying in Japan 🥂, Ancient town tourism🏮, Lower-tier city boom (?) ⬇️ | Following the Yuan

Most Chinese consumers don’t have a choice on avoiding traffic and hyped up prices during public holidays.

Hi, I’m writing as I’m on the flight to London via Vietnam, and then before boarding for London (it’s been quite a hassle). While my mind is on traveling, I want to digest some key trends emerged over the just past holiday from May 1 to 5.

I haven’t travelled during public holidays since I became self-employed a year ago, until this time. I went to Fujian province for a wedding, which the host referred to as “marriage between US and China” 🥹 as the bride is American.

However, for most Chinese consumers who have an office job, the public holiday is the only time they can travel with family members, so they don’t have a choice on avoiding traffic and high prices like I’ve been doing. I totally get their frustration, which means that the first item is super important as it set the tone.

As always (like, since 3 issues ago), help me learn what interest you the most in this issue:

Adjust rest time (Tiaoxiu) 💢

Before I start to digest travel trends, let’s have a refresher on the traveller sentiment, and why are people up in arms about adjust rest time, or tiaoxiu 调休.