Reverse Spring Festival Travel

by+Li+Zhuoxi

During Chinas Spring Festi- val， the younger generation is expected to return to their hometowns to celebrate the holiday with their parents， traditionally. These days， more and more parents are making the trip to the cities where their children work instead， a phenomenon that has been dubbed“reverse Spring Festival travel.”Chunyun， the Spring Festival travel rush， usually exerts heavy pressure on the countrys transportation system. This years Spring Festival travel rush spanned January 24 to March 3.

Lasting 15 days before Chinese New Years Day and 25 days after it， Chinas Spring Festival travel season is considered the largest annual human migration in the world. According to Chinas transportation authorities， an estimated 2.9 billion trips were made around the country during this period this year. Despite the rapid development of Chinas high-speed rail network， a one-way ticket is still hard to get during the holiday. And full-fare plane tickets are still too expensive for many young adults. Consequently， many young adults working in large or medium cities have started inviting their parents to make the trip instead. Because the vast majority of early holiday traffic is moving from larger cities to smaller towns and vise versa at the end， tickets are much cheaper and easier to buy， and airfares sometimes offer steep discounts to avoid empty seats on planes flying heavy holiday schedules.

A related Spring Festival phenomenon is that many service workers leave the cities during the holiday， leaving metropolitan locals with streets of shuttered shops. Reverse Spring Festival travel helps alleviate this inconvenience to some extent.