When Do Chinese Tourists Plan To Travel Outbound in 2023?

If you are a hotel, a destination marketing organization, or a travel brand that wants Chinese visitors, timing is everything. Chinese travelers do not book last minute. They plan ahead, they research carefully, and they concentrate their trips around specific national holidays. If your marketing campaign goes live after they have already decided where to go, you have missed the window. This guide shows you when Chinese tourists plan their outbound trips and when you need to reach them.

Data from Ctrip’s outbound travel reports (ctrip.com) shows clear booking patterns tied to China’s public holiday calendar. And according to the China National Tourism Administration (cnta.gov.cn), Golden Week and the Lunar New Year period together account for a large share of annual outbound departures. Understanding these peaks and the planning windows before them changes how you allocate your marketing budget.

The Chinese Holiday Calendar: The Dates That Drive Bookings

There are four main travel windows when Chinese outbound trips peak:

• Chinese New Year (Spring Festival): The biggest travel event of the year. Usually falls between late January and mid-February. Families reunite and then many travel. International bookings start going up six to eight weeks before the date.
• Qingming Festival (Tomb Sweeping Day): A four-day break in early April. Shorter trips to nearby destinations, especially Japan and Southeast Asia.
• Labor Day Golden Week: A five-day holiday in early May. One of the biggest outbound travel periods of the year. Young families and couples make up a large share of travelers.
• National Day Golden Week: Seven days starting October 1st. This is the peak outbound period of the year. Long-haul Europe bookings pick up here. Planning starts eight to ten weeks before the date.

Outside these peaks, there are also smaller travel moments tied to school exam periods ending in July and August. Summer travel from younger Chinese tourists (students and young professionals) is growing and should not be ignored.

The Planning Window: When You Need to Be Visible

Chinese travelers do not make impulsive decisions. They research for weeks before booking. This is especially true for international trips. The typical planning window for an outbound trip is:

• Destination discovery: 8-12 weeks before departure, mostly on Xiaohongshu and Douyin
• Active research: 6-8 weeks before departure, on Mafengwo for detailed guides and Ctrip for pricing
• Booking decision: 4-6 weeks before departure, on Ctrip or Fliggy
• Last-minute details: 1-3 weeks before departure, WeChat groups, questions to hotels and attractions

This means your content and paid campaigns need to be running at least two months before each holiday peak. If you start marketing when the holiday starts, you are too late.

How Younger and Older Travelers Plan Differently

Age changes the planning pattern. Young Chinese travelers under 35 tend to make faster decisions and use social media heavily throughout. They might see a Douyin video in mid-September and book a National Day trip within a week.

Older travelers, especially families with children or retired couples, plan much further in advance. They use OTAs as their primary tool and prefer package deals that take care of logistics. They are less influenced by viral social media content and more influenced by practical details: visa ease, direct flights, hotel reputation on Ctrip.

Knowing your target segment shapes how early you start and which channels you prioritize. For luxury boutique hotels aiming at mature Chinese travelers, Ctrip listings and WeChat articles matter most. For adventure or experience brands targeting young professionals, Douyin campaigns and Xiaohongshu content are the primary tools.

What Philip Chen Recommends for Holiday Marketing

Philip Chen, digital marketing expert with extensive experience in Chinese tourism campaigns, advises a simple rule: “Add eight weeks to every Chinese holiday and that is when your campaign should start. If you want bookings for National Day in October, your Douyin content and Xiaohongshu posts should be live by early August at the latest. Most brands miss this window because they plan by Western marketing timelines, not Chinese traveler timelines.”

He also points out an opportunity in the off-peak season: “Chinese travelers increasingly look for ways to avoid crowds. Content that specifically highlights shoulder season travel, showing that your destination is better in March or November than during Golden Week, can capture a very motivated and high-spending audience. These travelers are experienced, they travel independently, and they spend more than average because they are choosing for quality over convenience.”

Case Study: A New Zealand Tourism Board Campaign That Got the Timing Right

Sarah Mackintosh works in marketing for a regional tourism board in the South Island of New Zealand. Her team had been running campaigns to attract Chinese visitors but results were inconsistent. Some periods brought strong numbers and others brought almost nothing. She suspected the issue was timing and decided to test a new approach for the National Day Golden Week in October 2024.

In late July, eight weeks before the holiday, she launched a targeted Xiaohongshu campaign featuring local landscapes and unique South Island experiences: whale watching, glacier walks, and Maori cultural encounters. The posts were written in Chinese by a native-speaking content writer and styled to match the platform format that Chinese travelers prefer. She also ran Douyin short videos showing autumn colors in the region, because October is peak autumn season in New Zealand’s South Island.

By mid-August the posts were gaining organic traction. She partnered with one KOL, a Chinese travel influencer with 320,000 followers on Xiaohongshu who focuses on unique natural destinations. The KOL post went live in late August, about five weeks before the holiday, exactly when Chinese travelers were moving into the active booking phase.

Results for the October period were measurable. Hotel bookings from Chinese travelers in the region went up 38% compared to October 2023. Ctrip bookings for flights into Christchurch from mainland China increased 22% in the six weeks after the campaign launched. Three of the local hotels that were featured in the Xiaohongshu content ran at 90%+ occupancy during Golden Week, compared to 67% the previous year.

Sarah learned two things from this experience. First, the timing window of eight weeks actually worked. Second, the South Island’s autumn season was a genuinely compelling product for Chinese travelers who wanted something different from the standard Golden Week crowds. She now plans all her Chinese-market campaigns around the eight-week rule and has built a full annual content calendar around Chinese holidays. Her team is no longer reactive. They are proactive, and the results are consistent.

Practical Tips for Holiday Marketing

A few things that work consistently:

• Start content publishing eight to ten weeks before each Chinese holiday
• Use Chinese platform conventions: vertical video on Douyin, photo-diary style on Xiaohongshu
• Highlight practical details: visa situation, direct flight options, mobile payment acceptance
• Time your KOL content four to six weeks before the holiday for maximum booking conversion
• Prepare your WeChat account for an increase in inquiries two to three weeks before the holiday

For businesses that want to cover multiple holiday periods without stretching their team, working with a Chinese digital marketing agency that already has the calendar knowledge and platform expertise saves a lot of time.

How CTA Can Help

CTA builds Chinese holiday marketing campaigns for tourism and hospitality brands. Our services include:

• Douyin (TikTok China) campaigns planned around the Chinese holiday calendar
• WeChat Official Account management to handle inquiry volume during peak planning periods
• Baidu SEO and PPC to capture search traffic from Chinese travelers in the planning phase
• RED (Xiaohongshu) influencer marketing timed to match booking windows
• Chinese website design and localization so the booking experience works in China
• KOL and KOC partnerships activated at the right moment in the planning cycle

About CTA

Chinese Tourists Agency is a Chinese digital marketing agency based in Shanghai, operating since 2012. We help tourism brands, hotels, real estate businesses, and luxury companies reach Chinese consumers. Our team manages Douyin, WeChat, Baidu, and RED campaigns with deep expertise in the Chinese holiday travel cycle. Contact us to plan your next Chinese holiday campaign.

Written by Claire, March 2026. Claire covers Chinese outbound travel timing and digital marketing strategy at CTA Shanghai.