Dida Inc recently released its "2026 Spring Festival Hitch Travel Forecast," leveraging the company's extensive ride-sharing data to analyze emerging trends for holiday home returns and travel during the peak travel season.

The forecast indicates that during this year's Spring Festival travel rush, the peak days for booking and departing for outbound trips will be February 11 and February 12, respectively. Furthermore, bookings for outbound journeys are expected to remain at a high level from February 8 through February 11. For return trips, the peak booking and departure days are projected to be February 22 and February 23, with daily booking volumes staying elevated for several days surrounding these peak dates for both outbound and return travel.

For the Spring Festival holiday period itself, cross-city hitch rides booked with hotels or tourist destinations as the final destination are anticipated to maintain high demand from the fifth to the ninth day of the lunar new year. The volume of these travel-oriented bookings is expected to be approximately half that of rides destined for residential locations, reflecting the comparative scale of holiday tourism versus visiting relatives and friends.

In the lead-up to the Spring Festival, it is estimated that over 15% of cross-city hitch rides booked for residential destinations will commence directly from the workplace, offering a seamless journey home. Additionally, users show a strong preference for advance scheduling, with nearly 70% of all bookings made more than one hour ahead of time, and over 40% made more than 12 hours in advance.

The top five cities experiencing the fastest-growing popularity for hitch services this Spring Festival are forecast to be Chengmai, Wuzhishan, Zhuzhou, Qujing, and Yuxi, in that order. Among the top 30 cities by popularity, seven are located in Hainan province, four in Shandong province, and three each in Fujian and Sichuan provinces.

The five most popular cross-city hitch routes for returning home before the Spring Festival are expected to be Shenzhen to Dongguan, Shenzhen to Guangzhou, Shenzhen to Huizhou, Beijing to Langfang, and Shanghai to Suzhou.