Spring and Autumn short holidays stimulate the large consumer market

Recently, a machinery and electrical equipment company in Kunshan, Jiangsu, issued a notice about taking a three-day paid spring break, which has drawn widespread attention. In the spring of 2026, spring and autumn breaks for primary and middle schools became a hot topic. Some companies introduced parent-child accompaniment leave, paid spring leave, and more, encouraging employees to take trips with their children and activating the potential of holiday spending in a comprehensive way.

The “Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China” (hereinafter referred to as the “15th Five-Year Plan Outline”) proposes, “Explore and implement spring and autumn breaks for primary and middle school students.” In the 2026 “Government Work Report,” it is made clear, “Support eligible localities in promoting spring and autumn breaks for primary and middle schools.”

At present, more than ten provinces have already moved quickly to follow suit. A vacation reform concerning people’s well-being and economic transformation is rolling out step by step across different places.

Paid one of the special researchers, Fu Yifang, of the SuShang Bank, told a reporter from The Securities Daily that promoting spring and autumn breaks is intended to build a virtuous cycle of “people’s livelihood support—consumption activation—economic quality improvement” through the scientific reallocation of time resources. This is not only a people’s livelihood initiative to ease students’ academic burdens and promote parent-child companionship, but also an important lever to unleash the potential of services consumption, cultivate new economic growth points, and help transform the economic development model.

Pilot first, then scale up:

More than two decades of exploration shows results

In 2004, Hangzhou was the first in the country to explore a system of spring and autumn breaks for primary and middle school students. Today, this “people’s livelihood experiment” has continued for more than twenty years—growing from “pilot exploration” into “a people’s livelihood norm.” More places have rolled out similar measures, either with citywide coordination or independently by schools.

From practical experience, the scheduling of spring and autumn breaks effectively addresses two problems at once: congestion during the “Golden Week” period and idle resources during slack seasons.

Changes in consumption data directly show the economic empowerment effect of spring and autumn breaks. Judging from data from previous years, spring and autumn breaks have demonstrated strong momentum in driving consumption. During the 2025 autumn break (November 12 to 25), the railway department sent 11.377 million passengers in the Zhejiang region, up 22.1% year over year. On the first day of the “autumn break” in Ningbo on November 12, the local railway station sent 88,642 passenger trips, doubling compared with the same period in 2024. The rise in travel demand has directly boosted growth in related industries such as tourism, catering, and accommodation.

Looking at this year’s situation, the combination of the spring break and the Qingming holiday has changed the travel patterns and consumption timing. Qunar Travel data shows that the number of tourists planning to depart by air on April 1 was higher than the first day of the Qingming holiday. Meanwhile, working adults without spring break leave mostly chose to fly on the day before the Qingming holiday (April 3), forming a second minor peak in departures. This kind of staggered passenger flow not only easions operational pressure across transportation, scenic spots, accommodation, and other links, but also gives consumers a more comfortable and relaxed travel experience—creating favorable conditions for improving the quality and efficiency of the culture and tourism industry.

Fu Yifang said that practices in multiple places show that promoting spring and autumn breaks will bring multiple positive impacts. First, it achieves precise matching between supply and demand, directly stimulating a large market for parent-child consumption and study-tour (research learning) consumption. Second, it promotes optimization of the tourism market structure, allowing scenic spot resources, accommodation facilities, and transportation capacity to be utilized more evenly through “cutting peaks and filling valleys.” Third, it encourages upgrading of consumption supply, forming a development pattern in which consumption upgrading and supply innovation reinforce each other.

Build on momentum:

Activate the services consumption market

The consumption-spurring effect of spring and autumn breaks is not limited to the traditional tourism sector. It also extends into multiple services consumption areas such as culture, sports, and education, forming a positive trend of “blooming in multiple places with empowerment across the entire region.”

Recently, in multiple places, public cultural venues such as museums, youth centers, and science and technology museums have all stated that during spring and autumn breaks they will be open to students for free, while also offering special exhibitions and interactive activities.

Faced with a large parent-child travel group, the supply of tourism products is also shifting. For example, Tuniu, centered on East China and radiating to nearby regions, has launched mid- to short-distance study-and-travel products with a “natural scenery + cultural heritage” approach, using an itinerary pattern of “depart in the evening, experience deeply.”

Hotel booking data also confirms the hot demand for parent-child trips during the spring break. Ctrip data shows that during the spring break period, the conversion rate for booking parent-child rooms with an extra bed service was 28% higher than that for standard room types.

At the same time, localities have rolled out “spring break culture and tourism big gift packages,” including benefits such as free admission to scenic spots, free or discounted transportation, and discounts for study tours.

“Dense statements from multiple places about implementing spring and autumn breaks are not only an active response to policy, but also proactive actions grounded in local development realities to activate the services consumption market,” Fu Yifang said. Spring and autumn breaks deeply align with natural seasonal rhythms—spring flowers and autumn scenery are, by themselves, high-quality experience resources. Promoting spring and autumn breaks can help bring forth in-depth service products such as study tours, health and wellness care, and rural experience programs,推动 service consumption from “sightseeing-based” to “immersive” upgrading, and cultivate more resilient new driving forces for economic growth.

Cheng Chaogong, chief researcher at the Chengtong Research Institute, said, “The spring break policy brings new favorable developments for China’s tourism industry. In particular, the continuous vacation model is more likely to create new openings for short holiday breaks for families to travel together, which helps boost the growth of consumption across the full tourism chain, including transportation, accommodation, and scenic spots. At the same time, the connection between spring break and paid staggered leave can effectively disperse passenger flow pressure, improve the overall tourism experience, and promote high-quality development of the culture and tourism industry.”

Persevere for long-term results:

Turn holiday dividends into additional consumption

Do good work well—what matters most is precision. As efforts to accelerate the promotion of spring and autumn breaks continue, some real-world dilemmas urgently need to be addressed.

For example, the constraint of a “students get time off but parents don’t” limits the effectiveness of spring and autumn breaks in driving consumption. Tian Lihui, a professor of finance at Nankai University, said that to solve this problem, it is necessary to coordinate efforts across institutional guarantees, employment arrangements, and social services, so as to fully activate the diverse consumption demands of culture and tourism, education, services, and more driven by spring and autumn breaks.

In addition, there are still shortcomings in the services supply of the tourism market. At present, many study-tour products suffer from serious homogenization, lacking deep cultural content and personalized design; some products also have insufficient safety assurance measures. Meanwhile, because spring and autumn break schedules are not unified across regions, the enthusiasm of some market players is not enough, so there is insufficient supply of targeted holiday products.

Liu Xiangdong, chief analyst at Dongyuan Investment, believes that to fully release the consumption momentum of spring and autumn breaks, it is necessary to打出 a set of precise and practical policy measures. It is necessary to coordinate the timing connections of regional holiday schedules to stabilize market expectations; increase efforts in providing culture and tourism benefits to the public, implementing free admission to scenic spots, public transportation discounts, and targeted issuance of consumption vouchers for student groups; encourage the development of high-quality products such as特色 study tours and parent-child experiences, and improve service and safety standards; implement paid leave, promote公益托管 services, and remove barriers to family travel; provide tax and fee reductions and financial support to relevant market players, using multiple measures to clear supply and demand bottlenecks, so that holiday dividends are truly converted into incremental consumption and new driving forces for economic growth.

Spring is promising, and autumn’s harvest is worth looking forward to. From the top-level design of the “15th Five-Year Plan Outline” to the real-life feelings of households across the country; from “small entry points” that ease educational anxiety, to “large-scale effects” that activate consumption momentum—this institutional innovation of spring and autumn breaks for primary and middle school students not only reflects warmth in people’s livelihood, but also demonstrates the strength of reform. It is injecting lasting momentum into high-quality development. When more children, accompanied by their parents, step into museums and get closer to nature; when more families avoid crowds and enjoy relaxed parent-child time; and when culture and tourism consumption shifts from “too hot in peak season, too cold in off season” to “always warm across all four seasons,” we have every reason to believe that this people’s livelihood answer sheet will be written more and more concretely.