Policy red envelopes + long holiday boost! Tourism spending continues to rebound. Is the market stabilizing before and after the Spring Festival?

Since the Year of the Snake, the tourism industry has been steadily advancing amid policy support and demand recovery. As the 2026 Year of the Horse Spring Festival approaches, the combination of an extended holiday and policy dividends resonates, coupled with a shift in market style. Securities firms and industry institutions generally believe that sectors such as tourism, hotels, and catering listed in A-shares may experience a phased rally before and after the holiday. In the long term, the industry’s recovery trend is clear, and structural opportunities are emerging.

Continuous Policy Support Helps Industry Recovery

The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to坚持扩大内需这个战略基点，坚持惠民生和促消费、投资于物和投资于人紧密结合。Since the Year of the Snake, policy guidance and capital efforts have formed a synergistic effect, continuously revitalizing the vitality of tourism-related industries.

On the policy front, the focus on promoting consumption is clear, with service consumption becoming a key support area.

Documents such as the “Notice on Further Strengthening Comprehensive Regulation of the Tourism Market,” “Several Policies and Measures to Expand Service Consumption,” and “Work Plan to Accelerate Cultivation of New Growth Points in Service Consumption” have been issued successively, aiming to optimize and expand service supply, and promote quality improvement and benefits for the people. Multiple regions including Shanghai have introduced specific measures to expand service consumption, covering areas such as senior tourism, green cultural tourism, and quality accommodation. Policies on inbound tourism continue to be optimized, and duty-free consumption policies are also being improved, supporting high-quality development of service consumption.

On the capital side, industry investment and financing are becoming more rational, with clear differentiation in listing paths. Companies like Shaanxi Tourism and Impression Dapeng Bay through the New Third Board have achieved listings on the main board and Hong Kong stock market. Asset transactions in the hotel sector are active, with major deals such as the Ritz-Carlton Yalong Bay Sanya and Hilton International Hotel Chengdu landing, and Hubei Culture and Tourism’s acquisition of Junting Hotel becoming a landmark capital restructuring event, further promoting industry pattern optimization.

Data shows that by 2025, China’s service consumption will maintain rapid growth. Retail sales of services increased by 5.5% year-on-year, with cultural, sports, leisure, communication information, tourism consulting, leasing, and transportation services maintaining double-digit growth.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism recently released data indicating that in 2025, domestic residents’ travel trips reached 6.522 billion, a year-on-year increase of 16.2%, with total travel expenditure reaching 6.30 trillion yuan, up 9.5%. Both travel trips and consumption scale have significantly exceeded pre-pandemic levels, indicating a clear recovery trend in the domestic tourism market. Platforms like Fliggy and Qunar show that this year’s Spring Festival tourism market featured an early peak in passenger flow and prominent dual highlights of quality and cultural consumption, further confirming the resilience of cultural and tourism consumption.

(Source: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Statistical Bulletin)

Tourism Concept Sector Sees More Gains Than Losses Before and After Spring Festival

Based on data, focusing on the trend of the Eastmoney tourism concept sector index over the past ten years, the five trading days before and after the Spring Festival show clear phased characteristics, deeply linked to the industry’s recovery process, pandemic control measures, policy dividends, and market sentiment.

From 2016 to 2019, during these four years, most tourism concept sectors rose, with an average increase of 1.51% in the five days before the holiday and 3.08% after, showing strong performance.

During the three pandemic years, sector trends were highly correlated with control measures.

In 2020, due to the outbreak, the sector plunged 11.54% in the first five trading days before the Spring Festival holiday, and continued to decline nearly 5% after. In 2021, as pandemic control entered normalization, funds began to target short-distance travel demand. After a mid-year surge, the sector rebounded significantly around the Spring Festival, with cumulative gains exceeding 10%. In 2022, with tightened pandemic controls, the tourism sector was affected by fluctuations, declining before the holiday and experiencing a strong oversold rebound after, with gains over 9%.

In 2023, benefiting from full reopening and rising travel expectations, the sector rose about 2.5% before the holiday and retreated nearly 2% over the following five trading days, showing a short-term “layout-fulfillment” pattern.

In the past two years, the tourism concept sector has shown a pattern of decline before the holiday and strong gains afterward. The market logic has gradually shifted from emotional speculation to validation of fundamentals such as travel data, consumption data, and company performance. The sector averaged a 2.87% decline before the holiday and an 8.50% increase after.

Looking at the trend over the past ten years, the sector’s performance before and after the Spring Festival has been mixed, with an average decline of 1.01% before and a high probability of rebound afterward, with an average increase of 4.01%.

Excluding data from the pandemic years, the probability of the sector rising before the holiday exceeds 50%, with an average increase of 0.40%; the probability of rising over the five days after the holiday exceeds 80%, with an average increase of about 3.91%.

Brokerage Firms Generally Optimistic About Short-Term Opportunities

Regarding the tourism concept sector before and after this year’s Spring Festival, institutions generally hold a positive outlook, with core consensus focusing on three main logic points: peak season catalysis, supply-demand improvement, and long-term recovery.

CITIC Securities’ research report states that the nine-day Spring Festival holiday in 2026, combined with the peak of the Spring Festival travel rush, is expected to see 539 million railway passenger trips nationwide, a 5% year-on-year increase, directly boosting demand for scenic spots, hotels, and catering, which are expected to benefit fully.

The firm expects the hotel industry cycle to continue improving in 2026, with supply-demand rebalancing and RevPAR stabilization and rebound anticipated; duty-free sales are gradually stabilizing, and the new offshore duty-free policy has growth potential, recommending priority investment in leading companies with product and operational advantages.

Wanlian Securities analyst Ye Boliang said that the nine-day holiday will further boost tourism market confidence. He suggests focusing on travel chain companies benefiting from policy catalysis and consumption recovery, as well as duty-free leaders seizing the Hainan Free Trade Port opportunity. The hotel sector, as a core link, is expected to benefit significantly.

“Currently, valuations of tourism, hotel, and catering sectors are within reasonable ranges. After previous adjustments, the rebound momentum is sufficient, and the abnormal movements in mid-to-late January have already signaled the early signs of peak season,” said Dongwu Securities. They highlight three types of targets: scenic spots benefiting from increased passenger flow and state-owned enterprise reforms, hotel companies leveraging chain advantages and supply-demand improvements, and duty-free stocks benefiting from Hainan’s customs clearance and duty-free channel recovery.

Regarding recent trends in the tourism concept sector, industry insiders remind that in the short term, attention should be paid to the fulfillment of Spring Festival passenger flow and changes in consumption willingness. In the long term, focus should be on industry supply optimization, chain expansion, and cultural tourism integration progress, with structural opportunities concentrated in leading enterprises and specialized tracks.

7 Tourism Concept Stocks May See High Growth in the Year of the Horse

Specifically, looking at individual stocks, many tourism concept stocks are expected to achieve significant performance growth in the Year of the Horse.

According to consistent forecasts from three or more institutions, HAOXiang Ni is expected to see net profit attributable to the parent increase by more than five times in 2026. Its associate company, Henan HAOXiang Ni Jinlu Ornithological Park Co., Ltd., manages Henan Jinlu Ostrich Park, a national 3A scenic spot, one of the first national agricultural tourism demonstration sites, and Asia’s largest ostrich breeding demonstration base.

Fengyu Zhu’s net profit is expected to grow 1.5 times this year. The company is a leading enterprise in China’s digital display industry, with products and services widely used in urban cultural experiences, digital cultural tourism, and other fields. It has created IP-themed interactive experience spaces, such as the “Shanghai Water” Sci-Fi Museum (immersive experience of the “Three-Body” IP), utilizing holography, AIGC, MR, and other technologies to launch digital products like “Dream Back to Yuanmingyuan,” promoting industry upgrades from traditional displays to immersive and intelligent experiences.

Additionally, institutions forecast that Three Gorges Tourism, Tackle Road, Xiangyuan Culture & Tourism, Pearl River Shares, and Sanfu Outdoor will all see net profit increases between 50% and 80% this year.

Three Gorges Tourism is a leading tourism enterprise in Yichang City, with sightseeing cruises as its main performance support. Huaxi Securities’ latest research report states that the “Two Dams and One Gorge” tourism products are developing steadily, and the company is about to enter the inter-provincial cruise market in the Three Gorges area, which is expected to become a stable profit contributor; two more inter-provincial cruises are planned for 2028, with ample long-term growth potential.

“Xiangyuan Culture & Tourism’s scenic area operations are solid, and it is innovating in travel services, deepening its layout in cruise and low-altitude economy sectors, which could become new growth engines for the company’s performance,” Huaxin Securities recently stated in a report.

(Source: Oriental Wealth Research Center)