The Ministry of Culture and Tourism held its main event for the 2026 National Day Cultural and Tourism Consumption Month in Mile City, Yunnan Province on September 22, officially launching the initiative. The consumption month will run from late September through the end of October, during which local governments across the country will distribute consumer vouchers and other consumption subsidies totaling more than 310 million yuan.

Xiao Hongwei, director of the Policy Simulation Laboratory at the Economic Forecasting Department of the National Information Center under the National Development and Reform Commission, stated that based on domestic and international research, the direct consumption multiplier for digital consumer vouchers typically ranges from 2 to 3 times. If the voucher design is reasonable, with moderate spending thresholds and precise coverage of scenarios, the short-term stimulus multiple could reach 3.5 to 5.8 times.

The fourth quarter has traditionally been the peak consumption season, and this year's Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays falling back-to-back have further unleashed concentrated travel demand. During the National Day period, cultural and tourism consumption will play a significantly stronger role in supporting the growth of the service sector's added value and total retail sales of consumer goods.

This year's Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day are adjacent, creating a special consumption window where the two holidays overlap. Data from multiple platforms shows that long-distance travel is leading the trend, with bookings for popular flight routes over 2,000 kilometers doubling year-on-year, and ultra-long itineraries of 10 days or more accounting for 26 percent of bookings.

Huang Huang, a researcher at the China Tourism Academy, noted that in terms of marginal stimulus effects, the more than 310 million yuan in consumer vouchers and subsidies issued during the consumption month will not only directly drive spending on transportation, accommodation, dining, shopping, and entertainment, but will also be reflected in employment generation, tax contributions, and industrial linkages.

Huang emphasized that fully unlocking the potential of cultural and tourism consumption hinges on increasing the supply of high-quality products. Upgrading the supply side will drive qualitative improvements in cultural and tourism consumption and achieve both effective enhancement in quality and reasonable growth in volume.

According to information obtained from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, during the consumption month, local governments will focus on hot demand areas such as scenic mountain and river tours, Mid-Autumn family reunions, autumn leisure, red tourism, study tours, nighttime economy, and intangible cultural heritage cuisine. They will boost the supply of premium cultural and tourism products and host more than 20,000 cultural and tourism events.

During the consumption month, the increase in high-quality product supply and the distribution of consumption subsidies will create a dual-force effect of supply-side quality improvement and demand-side stimulation, further optimizing the consumption structure and elevating consumption quality, Huang added.