Thirteen days. That is how long a Chinese worker can be away this autumn by adding three days of leave to the Mid-Autumn Festival and the official Golden Week break. According to data Trip.com Group released on September 21, plenty of people are doing exactly that.
The average outbound trip now runs more than nine days. Departures start as early as September 25, a full week before the holiday officially begins on October 1, and more than half of outbound flight bookings fall before that date. Trip.com expects the busiest departure days to be September 25 and September 30. The cause is a quirk of the calendar: Mid-Autumn Festival lands on the Friday before Golden Week, so travellers leave early and dodge the worst of the crowds.
Longer stays, farther flights
Hotel bookings of seven nights or more are up 123% from a year earlier. Long-haul flight bookings are expected to grow by double digits, led by gateway cities in Europe, Australia and the United States, and London and Paris are growing faster than most.
Trips are getting more crowded with stops, too. Itineraries covering several cities rose 84%. Singapore-Bali, Hong Kong-Sydney and Amsterdam-Milan are favourite pairings, and Southeast Asia and Europe dominate.
Searches for “scenic trips” and “nature getaways” climbed 53%. At home, Qingdao, Lhasa and Kashgar are among the fastest-growing flight destinations, while rail passengers are heading for Xiangxi, Zhangjiajie and Guilin.
Abroad, islands sell. Jeju and Bali sit in the top 10 of most-booked international flight destinations. Flight bookings to Cebu rose 111% and to Phuket 78%. Brussels and Athens, both prized for their heritage, are also posting strong gains.
Young travellers set the pace
Travellers aged 18 to 24 show the fastest growth of any age group, with millennials and Gen Z driving the rise. Many are heading to New Zealand, where flight bookings to Queenstown grew 314% and to Auckland 276%. Incheon and Chiang Mai are drawing more of them as well.
Seoul is the top global holiday destination this Golden Week, with international flight bookings up 91%. Busan, Cheongju and Daegu are all seeing triple-digit growth. South Korea’s Chuseok holiday overlaps with Golden Week, and South Korean travellers can stretch it with three days off, which lifts regional traffic. Flights to Fukuoka rose 70% and to Shanghai 68%, with Japanese and Chinese travellers behind most of that. Japan also stays popular with visitors from Malaysia, Thailand and South Korea.
Visitors coming the other way
Inbound tourism to China is rising over the same stretch. Yanji, Dunhuang and Hailar post some of the fastest booking growth. Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou keep drawing strong flows, particularly from Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia.
Mutianyu Great Wall is the most popular route on Trip.com’s Beijing Express layover tour, launched in December 2024 for international travellers with layovers of more than eight hours. The tour also takes in the Temple of Heaven and Tiananmen Square. Shanghai Disney Resort, the Emperor Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum and Zhangjiajie National Forest Park round out the popular list.
Sources
- 2026 Golden Week Chinese Outbound Travel Forecasts – Dragon Trail International
- Trip.com Group Reports Surge in Outbound, Inbound, and Regional Travel for Golden Week 2026
- Trip.com Group Reports Surge in Long-Haul, Multi-Destination Bookings for Golden Week
