China celebrates its National Day on October 1st, and the start of the travel-filled Golden Week holiday.
Each year on October 1st the People’s Republic of China marks National Day. It also starts one of the country’s Golden Week’s, a week-long holiday filled with travel, celebration, and spending.
For China, National Day is a celebration of the country’s founding after the victory over the Kuomintang during China’s long Civil War. This year, celebrations are expected to be especially extravagant as it marks 75 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
Military parades, flag-raising ceremonies, festivals, and more will be organised across the country to celebrate National Day.
The week-long holiday organised around National Day has been labelled a ‘Golden Week’. It is a period of travel within China as people visit family and friends. In recent years, there has been increasing international travel as people seek a week away abroad.
The Different Golden Weeks
The National Day holiday isn’t the only Golden Week during the year in China, there are normally three weeks that can be referred to as Golden Week.
The first is during the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) in late January or early February. The other is the National Day Golden Week.
In May, a 5-day holiday is organised around Labour Day, however, this doesn’t have as much importance as the other two.
Origins and Significance
The term “Golden Week” was first introduced in 1999 as part of an initiative to encourage tourism and promote economic growth.
Supposedly as a way to stimulate economic growth and consumption following the Asian Financial Crash of 1997 two new seven-day holidays were introduced. One for Chinese New Year and one for National Day.
Labour Day itself has long been a public holiday, but the importance of it has varied. In 2007 the three-day Labour Day holiday was cut down to just one day. This lasted until 2019 when the government reintroduced a longer holiday. In 2025 there were 5 days off for Labour Day.
Both National Day and Spring Festival Golden Weeks are opportunities for people to reconnect with family and travel. While National Day is a very patriotic festival, Spring Festival is a much more cultural event.
Both are filled with spending.
Travel and Economic Impact
Golden Weeks are the busiest travel season in China. Millions of people take advantage of the week-long holidays to travel. China’s Ministry of Transport predicted 1.94 billion inter-city trips will be made during the National Day holiday this year.
Popular domestic tourist destinations like Beijing, Shanghai, Xi’an, and natural wonders such as Zhangjiajie National Forest Park see a dramatic influx of visitors. The government promotes tourism during this period, with numerous festivals and events planned across the country.
Internationally, it is a chance for people from China to travel overseas.
This mass movement of people significantly boosts local economies, with hotels, restaurants, and attractions experiencing heightened demand.
Golden Week Controversies
Not everything about Golden Week is, well, Golden.
Many of the trips are carried out by migrant workers. These workers move from one Chinese province, typically a poorer rural one, to another Chinese province, typically a richer urban coastal province. China’s restrictive Hukou system limits what these internal migrants can do. Hukou is a household registration system which links you to a certain place – normally where you are born – in China. When you move to a new place it is harder to access benefits and social infrastructure like schooling.
Many migrant workers leave their elderly relatives and younger children behind in the province they came from. Golden Weeks like National Day are one of the few opportunities each year they can return home to see relatives.
An issue that affects anyone is the concept of Tiaoxiu. While these seven day national holidays sound lovely, there normally made up of a couple of days that are actually off and a couple of days that have been shifted from the weekend to create a full seven days off.
To get the days off, workers must work the weekend before or after.
This year, the official government statements on holidays showed that for National Day Golden Week October 1st to October 7th was off. However, workers had to work on Sunday September 29th and Saturday October 12th.
The Joy of Golden Week
Despite these controversies, China’s Golden Weeks are looked forward to throughout the year by people in China.
Whether it is a reunion with family or a sunny holiday in Thailand, they are a key part of China’s national identity and a massive economic driver.
If you liked this article why not read: People want to travel during the week-long National Day holiday
