From celebrity travel ambassadors to evolving youth travel styles, these viral conversations across China’s top platforms reveal new insights into outbound tourism, consumer confidence, and emotional motivations behind travel. Here's a roundup of this week's hottest travel and lifestyle trends across Weibo, Douyin, and Baidu.

Hainan’s tourism retail sector is undergoing a dramatic transformation—duty-free sales have surged from RMB 16 billion in 2012 to over RMB 309 billion in 2024, a nineteen-fold increase. In 2023, global air travel reached 8.7 billion passengers, with China reclaiming its position as the world’s second-largest aviation market. Drawing on the 2025 White Paper by KPMG China and The Moodie Davitt Report, this article reveals how policy reform, immersive retail design, and Gen Z de

India Reopens Tourist Visas to Chinese Travellers After a five-year hiatus, India resumed issuing tourist visas to Chinese citizens from 24 July 2025. Search traffic for Delhi skyrocketed tenfold on Chinese travel sites, with Hong Kong–Delhi flights becoming the hottest ticket.

Thailand’s tourism industry was already on shaky ground — now, with heavy artillery exchange across its border with Cambodia, it’s facing its toughest blow yet. As the region plunges into its worst conflict in over a decade, hopes of a travel rebound risk being buried under smoke and uncertainty.

Chinese consumers and travellers are back: digital-first, affluent and spontaneous. Platforms like Xiaohongshu and Douyin drive discovery as premium, experience-focused, value-conscious behaviour reshapes engagement in 2025.

China is ageing—310 million citizens are now over 60, constituting 22% of the national population. Far from being a social cost, this cohort is powering what Beijing now labels the 银发经济 (silver economy) – an ecosystem of goods and services for later‑life living.

China’s digital platforms reveal new patterns of behaviour across travel, consumption, and generational shifts. Here’s a snapshot of trending topics with direct links to explore each in detail.

China’s travel landscape remains vibrant as summer approaches its peak. Insights drawn from key platforms — Weibo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Baidu, and Zhihu — illustrate the shifting patterns of Chinese travel behaviour, with strong outbound sentiment, evolving digital influence, and a growing preference for value-driven experiences.

China’s affluent class is reshaping wealth management, combining international ambition with domestic caution. This article unpacks how digitally fluent, globally mobile Chinese wealthy clients are driving demand for integrated, personalised financial services. Drawing on insights from Standard Chartered’s latest report, it highlights why banks must offer hybrid models blending digital convenience with human expertise. From the mainland to the Greater Bay Area, regional nuanc