Data on the summer travel market performance for July and the first week of August has begun to emerge. Overall, the situation has not been very favorable due to continuous heavy rainfall.
To assess the market, we selected booking data for six cities for the week of August 11 to 18.
So far, some destinations have shown quite strong mid-August flight booking figures, while others are under pressure.
Let’s start with Beijing. As of 01:00 Beijing time on August 9, 2025, the number of passengers with booked tickets to Beijing—categorized by departure date—shows that days with growth over 5% are marked in bold black, and days with declines are marked in bold red. Overall, bookings are up throughout the period, with four days recording growth above 6%. However, starting on the 18th, bookings begin to decline.
Sanya, though a smaller city, is equally busy: data shows that next week, four days have increases of over 7%, with August 17 up 15% compared to last year. This surge is clearly reflected in the hotel sector’s improved performance. We interviewed Liu Kaiqiang, president of the Sanya Tourism Hotel Association, who told us that although occupancy dipped slightly—by about two percentage points—during the week of July 21 due to a typhoon, since August 1 occupancy has returned to normal peak-season levels, now running 6–7 percentage points higher than last year, with RevPAR also up by about seven points. The overall trend aligns with growth.
However, outside of Beijing, Chengdu, and Sanya, not all cities show an optimistic outlook for next week’s summer travel season. For example, Shanghai’s data shows only one day with growth exceeding 5%, and overall passenger numbers are merely flat to slightly higher than last year.
Meanwhile, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, affected by sudden events such as the chikungunya outbreak, are facing a much bleaker picture. The number of passengers planning to fly to these two cities next week is generally flat or down compared to last year, with Shenzhen seeing a full week of lower passenger numbers year-on-year.
