During the 2025 Year of the Snake Spring Festival, my country's consumer market was hot, with a number of consumption data hitting record highs, the content and forms of consumption during the Spring Festival were more diverse, and the trend of consumption upgrading was highlighted. As an important indicator of the optimization and upgrading of consumption structure and the openness of the consumer market, under the combined action of various factors, the inbound and outbound tourism market of the Spring Festival has gone hand in hand with the two lines of "welcoming in" and "going out". Relevant data show that during the Spring Festival, the average daily inbound and outbound personnel at ports nationwide reached 1.85 million, an increase of 9.5% over last year's Spring Festival holiday. Cross-border travel orders on the first day of the long holiday increased by more than 30% compared with the first day of the Spring Festival holiday last year, of which tickets and car rental bookings rose by more than 70%, and air tickets, hotels, etc. all showed double-digit growth. The inbound and outbound tourism market during the Spring Festival is full of vitality and consumers are enthusiastic, showing a rich and diverse market highlights and strong development trends.

The Spring Festival of the Year of the Snake is the first Spring Festival after the successful application for World Heritage. my country has fully relaxed and optimized the transit visa-free policy, and has fully exempted visas from each other with 26 countries. It has unilaterally exempted visas from entry to 38 countries, and has 54 countries for transit visa-free stay time to extend to 240 hours, and has added 21 new transit visa-free entry and exit ports. With the further relaxation of relevant policies, the upstream and downstream of the cultural and tourism industry chain are working together, and new immersive and experiential consumption scenarios are constantly "out of the circle". In addition, driven by the hot spots of my country's social platforms, more and more foreign tourists come to my country to travel during the Spring Festival. Ctrip data shows that inbound travel orders increased by 203% year-on-year during the Spring Festival, and "China Travel" is setting off a new trend around the world.

While "welcoming in", there is also strong demand for "going out". Data shows that during the Spring Festival, the outbound search index of Chinese tourists increased by 51%, and the popularity of booking on New Year's Eve on group tours increased by more than 100% year-on-year. The travel destinations cover more than 2,100 overseas cities, an increase of 50% over last year. The number of outbound tourists in my country increased by 48% year-on-year, and the number of them surged during the 8-day holiday. The consumption capacity of the people in my country has been continuously improving, and mass consumption is more quality.

Whether it is "welcoming in" or "going out", this year's cross-border tourism has shown new characteristics. Group tours have generally declined, and more and more free travel has been. In addition to "check in" in big cities and popular attractions, tourists prefer culturally characteristic small towns and villages. The mainstream people in cross-border travel have a tendency to become younger, and they are more susceptible to social media. In addition to enjoying the scenery along the way, the requirements for local cultural atmosphere and experience have also been generally increased, and in-depth travel has become the choice of more tourists. The cultural and tourism industry must seize the popularity of factors and market opportunities, and improve and strengthen the cross-border tourism industry.

Make full use of policy dividends. Since last year, the entry and exit policy has been comprehensively relaxed. The "Several Measures on Further Cultivating New Growth Points to Prosper Cultural and Tourism Consumption" just issued proposes specific measures to expand the supply of characteristic high-quality products. In this regard, we must give full play to our policy advantages, deepen the supply-side structural reform of the cultural and tourism industry, coordinate the expansion of domestic and foreign demand, focus on improving service quality, enriching consumption scenarios, optimizing the tourism consumption environment, and injecting a steady stream of market vitality into cross-border tourism.

Focus on promoting the deep integration of culture and tourism. The integration of culture and tourism means using culture to enrich the supply of tourism products and use tourism to release the economic value of the cultural industry. Focus on exploring and utilizing intangible cultural heritage resources, pay more attention to cultural connotation and in-depth experience, enrich the supply of cultural and tourism products, and design tourism products with cultural experience as the core: a building, a food, a City walk... We must allow domestic and foreign tourists to gain emotional resonance while savoring culture and enjoying the journey, realize emotional value, and fully experience the beauty of our country's mountains and rivers, history, and culture.

Use open thinking to promote innovation and upgrading of cross-border tourism. Against the backdrop of the overlapping advantages of policy and market popularity, we must continue to promote the expansion of the opening up of the cultural and tourism industry, focus on building world-class cultural and tourism destinations, gather global cultural and tourism innovation elements, increase efforts to attract and utilize foreign investment, and achieve the same resonance and two-way interaction between the domestic and international markets. Focusing on new consumption concepts, models, needs, scenarios, etc., we will continuously explore emerging consumption forms, give birth to innovative changes in the commercial field, and use innovation to promote the coordinated development and innovation and upgrading of the entire cross-border tourism industry chain. (Author: Liu Zhisong)