Chinese New Year 2026: Travel Agent Insights

The Year of the Fire Horse begins next week, with a longer-than-ever, nine-day public holiday to celebrate the Chinese New Year from 15-23 February. What can we expect for this peak season for Chinese outbound travel? To find out, Dragon Trail surveyed 315 travel agents selling outbound travel from mainland China.

Click here for more results from Dragon Trail’s latest Chinese Outbound Travel Trade Survey.

By the last week of December 2025, 98.4% of our survey respondents said they were already selling outbound travel products for Chinese New Year 2026, so we asked them what was selling best. Medium-haul destinations were the most popular, chosen by 61%, followed by short-haul destinations at 30%. Chinese New Year is a peak time for family travel, and 52% of agents said that families with children were the top traveler segment. Warm weather and island holidays were most popular travel theme (35%), followed by ice and snow experiences (25%). Private and small-group travel stood out as the leading mode of travel, chosen by 55%. This matches up with Chinese travel agency Utour’s Chinese New Year report, which said that small groups of 20 people or fewer accounted for half of their bookings.

Which destinations will be most popular this Chinese New Year? We asked travel agents to write in which outbound destinations were selling best, so they were free to write anything and also mention multiple destinations. 61% mentioned destinations in Asia, including geographic regions and specific countries and cities. Among the countries, South Korea took the lead (14.2%) followed by Thailand (12.5%), Singapore (9.2%), Japan (8.8%), and Malaysia (6.9%). Newly visa-free Russia ranked 6th, with respondents mentioning specific cities throughout the country: Moscow, Vladivostok, and Murmansk.

25.8% of respondents mentioned destinations in Europe (which included Russia) with Iceland, Norway, and France the next most popular countries.

Beyond the top 10 destinations, Chinese travel agents expect their customers to explore widely, visiting cities, islands, deserts, and icebergs. Survey respondents mentioned a total of 47 countries and 15 geographic regions, spread across every continent and from the Arctic to the Antarctic.

Some travel agents chose to describe the kind of destinations selling best, rather than to name specific places. These responses included “islands”, “good environment and pleasant temperatures”, “holiday relaxation and winter escape,” and “leisure islands and seasonal routes,” all emphasizing relaxing and comfortable choices.

How much time and money do Chinese travel agents expect their clients to spend on travel this Lunar New Year? More than half (54%) said outbound trips of 4–7 days are most popular at Chinese New Year, with another 41% choosing trips of 8–12 days.

In terms of cost, around one-third each said that clients would spend RMB5–10k (US$700–1,400; 36%) or RMB10–20k (US$1,400–2,900; 33%). 19% of travel agents said that travelers would spend more than RMB20k per person on average.

Dragon Trail International wishes all our readers a very happy Chinese New Year. We’ll provide updates after the holiday on the results from all of China’s major travel agencies and government bodies relating outbound travel. Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn to make sure you don’t miss out on future Chinese outbound travel news and Dragon Trail reports.