China’s Ministry of Transport announced on 4 October that domestic travel networks handled 303.568 million cross-regional person-trips on the third day of Golden Week—0.6 percent fewer than the previous day but only 0.4 percent below the same holiday period in 2025. Railways moved an estimated 20.35 million passengers, up 11 percent year-on-year, while expressways recorded 225 million vehicle journeys despite intermittent congestion in Jiangsu, Sichuan and Guangdong. Waterways carried 1.95 million travellers, buoyed by island cruises in Hainan and sightseeing ferries in Shenzhen. Although primarily domestic, the data matter to international employers: high internal mobility can affect the availability of domestic flights connecting to long-haul services and may strain last-mile trucking for export shipments. Airlines such as China Eastern added 935 extra trains-plane intermodal tickets, but freight forwarders still report tight trucking capacity at coastal ports. Multinationals planning board meetings in China the week of 7 October should factor in possible flight delays and recommend staff travel with soft copy booking confirmations, as on-the-spot ticket changes are common when high-speed trains sell out.
Source: GMT8 Press / Zhito Finance
