Service and experience-based consumption are recovering at a notably faster pace than traditional retail sales. Looking ahead, the recovery in consumer spending is expected to remain uneven and structurally divergent, with some traditional retail segments potentially facing inventory and pricing pressures. On the policy front, decision-makers are anticipated to sustain the positive momentum established during the Spring Festival period, introducing more targeted and gradual easing measures around the time of the National People's Congress meetings to stabilize expectations and support demand. In this environment, earnings visibility and fundamental resilience have become increasingly important. Leading catering operators with significant scale advantages, sound unit economics, and strong cost control capabilities, as well as core duty-free operators that fully benefit from Hainan’s long-term policy incentives and can leverage operational efficiencies to improve profit margins, are well-positioned to achieve relative gains as the consumption cycle gradually normalizes.

Key observations include: Spring Festival consumption exceeded expectations. The 2026 Spring Festival holiday, spanning February 17–23, was the longest such break on record. The extended nine-day holiday significantly boosted consumption in areas highly sensitive to foot traffic, such as dining and tourism. The holiday period served as a critical window for assessing the underlying momentum of consumption recovery and anticipating policy directions around the NPC meetings. Against a backdrop of macroeconomic softness, pragmatic and preemptive policy support—including the distribution of over RMB 20.5 billion in consumption vouchers and subsidies by local governments prior to the holiday—effectively underpinned demand. Official data indicated that Spring Festival consumption performance surpassed expectations. According to Ministry of Commerce figures, sales at major retail and catering enterprises increased by 5.7% year-on-year on a comparable basis, accelerating noticeably from the 4.1% and 2.7% growth rates seen during the 2025 Spring Festival and Mid-Autumn "Golden Week" holidays, respectively. Among 78 key commercial districts monitored, foot traffic and sales rose by 6.7% and 7.5% year-on-year, respectively. Overall, the Spring Festival data laid a relatively solid foundation for consumer recovery throughout the year.

Festive gathering demand drove catering revenue. Higher travel frequency, milder weather, and the extended holiday collectively supported dining demand during the Spring Festival. Booking data from various platforms indicated strong interest in New Year’s Eve dinners. According to MEITUAN-W and Dianping, dine-in reservations on New Year’s Eve surged more than threefold year-on-year on a comparable basis. HAIDILAO recorded over 50,000 table reservations on New Year’s Eve, with more than 1,000 stores operating during the holiday period. Time-honored brands such as Bianyifang reported full occupancy on New Year’s Eve, with booking rates remaining above 90% from the second to the fifth day of the lunar new year. The demand for pre-made dishes also continued to rise during the holiday, benefiting primarily from improved convenience and value for money. Younger generations are redefining the significance of New Year’s Eve meals, shifting from time-intensive home cooking to dedicating more time to family gatherings and rest—a consumption trend that is gaining cross-generational acceptance. Data from Dingdong Maicai showed that sales of pre-made New Year’s Eve meals grew by 180% year-on-year on a comparable basis for the 2026 holiday. Major catering brands and supermarket retailers have actively expanded in this segment, launching diverse ready-to-eat and semi-prepared meal kits to further penetrate the at-home dining market.

The extended holiday boosted tourism demand. As consumer preference for "experiential" and "emotional value" becomes more pronounced, related policy support is accelerating the conversion into tangible demand. Themed tourism, such as ice-snow tours and warm-weather getaways, performed strongly during the Spring Festival, with related passenger traffic and bookings increasing by 120% and 68% year-on-year, respectively. The nine-day holiday further unleashed cross-regional and multi-scenario travel demand. Data from platforms including Fliggy and Tuniu indicated that "multiple trips within one holiday" is emerging as a new trend, with both overall travel bookings and per-capita spending rising during the 2026 Spring Festival. Fliggy reported that domestic travel orders reached a new high, with scenic spot ticket bookings up more than 80% year-on-year and hotel room nights increasing by 75%. MEITUAN-W data also showed that platform users visited an average of 2.2 cities during the holiday, with the proportion of users making cultural and tourism-related consumption across multiple cities rising by 50% year-on-year. The combination of a longer holiday and more flexible, multi-segment, and staggered travel arrangements effectively extended the duration and geographic reach of Spring Festival tourism demand, improving utilization rates for transportation, accommodation, and destination resources and providing a stronger foundation for recovery in the tourism and broader cultural tourism industry chain.

Duty-free spending emerged as another holiday highlight. Off-shore duty-free sales also stood out. This marked the first Spring Festival following the implementation of island-wide customs clearance in Hainan, with the new policy framework unleashing pent-up demand and accelerating the repatriation of high-end consumption. Customs data showed that duty-free sales in Hainan during the Spring Festival surged 30.8% year-on-year to RMB 2.72 billion, with passenger traffic up 35.4%. The robust performance was driven by two main factors: increased visitor numbers catalyzed by the longer holiday, and continuous improvements in product supply and store operational efficiency following the island-wide customs clearance. The data underscores the strong pull of the new policy on off-shore duty-free consumption and highlights the potential for enhanced operational resilience and profitability in domestic duty-free channels, with improved visibility for industry revenue growth and margin expansion through economies of scale.

Key sector risks include: weaker-than-expected consumption recovery due to macroeconomic uncertainty; rapid increases in raw material and other input costs; higher-than-expected operating expenses; intensified industry competition; unfavorable changes in regulatory policies; and market volatility impacting valuations and liquidity.