China government was very cautious and discouraged travel during the long festive holiday; recommended to spend the Spring Festival; enjoy traditional Chinese culture in the cities where they work to avoid the spread of COVID-19. Getui big data observed and analyzed the population traffic in major cities during the Spring Festival with the pre-sale of tickets from some APPs such as 12306 and ZhiXing Train Tickets. Results showed that ticket sales during the Spring Festival were relatively stable.
According to Getui big data, the average activity of train ticket booking apps during the pre-sale period in 2021 was only 53.6% of the same period last year, a decrease of 46.4%, and the activity of return train ticket apps after the Spring Festival was even lower, which was 33.1% of the same period last year, a decrease of 66.9%. According to the data, the number of people leaving the cities where they worked and returning to their hometowns decreased significantly compared to the year before.
The report indicated that in the last 7 days leading up to the Spring Festival, the number of people returning to their hometown from 19 first-tier and new first-tier cities dipped compared to last year, with the highest drop of over 70% and the lowest drop of nearly 50%. The top 3 cities in terms of people leaving this year were Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Chengdu. In the same period last year, the top 3 cities were Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shenzhen.
User profile of people returning to their hometown during the Spring Festival in 2021:
1. Male: Female 54%:46%
2. ≤ 24 years old: 18.3%. The proportion is much lower than last year. This indicates that younger people are more cooperative with the country’s prevention and control measures
3. 25-44 years old: 61.7%.
4. People with medium consumption levels: 54.8%.
Getui is our early partner and one of the lead data providers for China Data Bank™.
China Data Bank™ is an UnDMP - a new class of data solutions that is focused on providing the right data solutions to all advertisers and without the overhead of complex data requirements stipulated by the China Government. Initial partners for the venture include the likes of Alibaba Unidesk, Tencent Marketing, Getui, China Unicom, UnionPay, JD, etc.