China’s National Day holiday saw travel remain broadly stable as the break – an extended length of time compared with 2025 – supported longer-distance trips, though cinema cooled sharply, offering mixed signals on efforts to revive consumer spending.

Over the seven-day break, which ended on Wednesday, China recorded 2.142 billion cross-regional passenger trips, averaging 306 million a day, up 0.7 per cent year on year, according to the Ministry of Transport, as reported by state broadcaster CCTV on Thursday.

Analysts from China International Capital Corporation (CICC) said in a note on Thursday that the growth in passenger travel had slowed, potentially reflecting “the drag from higher oil prices on road travel”.

Oil prices have remained elevated amid persistent concerns over Middle East supply disruptions and rising risks to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Specifically, road passenger trips averaged 280.26 million a day, while China’s railways handled an average of 21.70 million passengers per day during the break, up 12.7 per cent year on year, according to the transport ministry. Air passenger numbers averaged 2.42 million a day, broadly in line with last year’s level.

Trains were more popular than planes for economic reasons, independent civil aviation analyst Li Hanming said.

For some, this year’s customary National Day week effectively absorbed another holiday, the late September Mid-Autumn Festival. That combination expanded the break for students and company employees who were allowed to combine the two holidays.

“The Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays allowed people to extend their break to 13 days by taking three days of annual leave, lengthening the travel window and releasing demand for longer-distance and more in-depth trips,” the CICC analysts said in the note.

Booking platform Trip.com said that domestic travel saw a “clear shift” towards longer distances.

Outbound “long-haul” travel expanded as well, the platform said in a statement to the South China Morning Post, with trips lasting eight days or more rising to 42 per cent of outbound trips. It found double-digit growth in travel to Italy and Spain, plus a doubling of trips to New Zealand.

During the National Day holiday, China recorded 15.46 million inbound and outbound trips, averaging 2.21 million a day, up 6.7 per cent year on year, according to data from the National Immigration Administration on Thursday.

Outbound trips by mainland residents rose 9.3 per cent year on year, while inbound trips by foreigners increased 5.4 per cent. Those entering under visa-free policies rose 9.2 per cent.

On the cinema front, China’s National Day holiday box office came in at 1.165 billion yuan (US$173,897.5 million), according to data from the National Film Administration reported by CCTV on Thursday.

The figure was down 36.5 per cent from the 1.835 billion yuan recorded during the same holiday period last year, although the 2025 National Day film season ran for eight days, one day longer than this year’s seven-day holiday.

The average ticket price during this year’s National Day film season was 36.41 yuan, down 0.77 per cent compared to the same period last year, according to the National Film Administration.

The data underscored challenges for Beijing’s efforts to bolster domestic consumption, which remains sluggish. Retail sales, a key gauge of consumer spending, rose just 0.4 per cent year on year in August, slowing from 0.6 per cent in July, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Meanwhile, growth in turnover at major commercial areas during the National Day holiday improved slightly compared with the 2026 Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival holidays, the CICC report said.

It cited data from the Ministry of Commerce showing that foot traffic and turnover at 78 major shopping areas monitored by the ministry rose 3.4 per cent and 5.3 per cent, respectively, in the first three days of the holiday from the same period last year.