In 2026, the Mid-Autumn Festival fell right alongside National Day, creating a 13-day "super Golden Week" from September 25 to October 7, during which China's outbound tourism market saw an across-the-board boom. Transport authorities projected the holiday would see roughly 31.19 million passenger trips nationwide across rail, road, waterway and civil aviation. Travel-platform data showed international flight bookings up 22.5% year-on-year, with outbound ticket bookings exceeding 1.21 million, as Chinese tourists' footprints spanned cities worldwide — the hashtag "the whole world knows Chinese people are on holiday" briefly trended on social media. Data across multiple platforms pointed to the same trend: this year's Golden Week saw not just higher overall outbound travel volume, but particularly strong growth in long-haul trips, off-the-beaten-path destinations and immersive travel experiences.

In the long-haul segment, Qunar data showed that on the first day of the National Day holiday, bookings for flights over 2,000 kilometers rose more than 40% year-on-year, with travel product orders for Europe, South America, Australia and New Zealand all up more than 40% as well. Fliggy's platform data showed even more striking growth: Europe tour orders up 140% year-on-year, North America travel and car-rental orders surging 480%, and the Australia-New Zealand market expanding 326%; the same day's data showed overseas airport-transfer and local-activity orders up 43% and 37% respectively. Multi-country itineraries also emerged as a new highlight, with hotel bookings for combinations such as "Singapore + Malaysia" and "France + Italy" up 1.2 times year-on-year, reflecting a trend toward more diverse and deeper destination choices among Chinese outbound travelers.

In the Southeast Asia and regional market segment, Bangkok emerged as the undisputed hot-destination winner of this year's Golden Week. According to Tongcheng Travel's Golden Week outbound travel rankings, Bangkok ranked first among Chinese tourists' overseas destinations, with Kuala Lumpur and Seoul in second and third place, while Singapore, Bali, Ho Chi Minh City, Istanbul, Sydney, London and Dubai also made the top 10. Notably, Japan — which had long held the top spot — unexpectedly fell out of the top 10 this time. Affected by a period of tension in China-Japan relations and other factors, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Japan in the first half of 2026 plunged 56.4% year-on-year, with Tokyo and Osaka both dropping out of the top 10 popular destinations. In contrast, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries seized the opening, becoming top choices for Chinese tourists seeking alternative destinations. Several airlines increased capacity on China-Southeast Asia routes by about 20% to meet holiday demand.

Specific to the Thai market, the Tourism Authority of Thailand had earlier forecast that roughly 250,000 Chinese tourists would visit Thailand during the September 25-October 7 Mid-Autumn and National Day holiday, up 24% year-on-year, generating an estimated 11.5 billion baht (about RMB 2.3 billion) in tourism revenue, up 37%. During the Golden Week, Chinese tourists to Thailand showed new trends including earlier bookings, longer stays and greater interest in natural scenery and distinctive cities: in Phuket, for example, flight bookings rose 78% year-on-year, bookings of seven nights or longer rose 123%, and multi-destination trip bookings rose 84%, reflecting a shift in Chinese tourists' travel style in Thailand from "checklist" sightseeing toward deeper, more relaxed vacation experiences. As of September 10, Thailand had welcomed a cumulative total of roughly 3.6415 million Chinese visitors for the year, with China remaining firmly Thailand's largest source market for international tourists.

Analysts say this year's shift in Golden Week outbound travel patterns reflects both the continued recovery of Chinese tourists' spending power and willingness to travel, and the direct influence of geopolitical factors on tourism flows. Japan's fall from the top-10 rankings is widely seen as directly tied to the recent period of tension in China-Japan relations, compounded by yen exchange-rate volatility and visitor caps at some Japanese attractions, together cooling demand for Japan trips. Southeast Asian countries, leveraging geographic proximity, visa convenience and value for money, successfully absorbed this diverted outbound demand, with Thailand among the biggest beneficiaries. At the same time, growth rates for long-haul destinations such as Europe, North America and Australia-New Zealand were equally striking, showing that China's outbound tourism market is not simply shifting demand from one place to another, but expanding on all fronts simultaneously — short-haul and long-haul destinations growing together, reflecting the broader trend of China's outbound middle-class traveler base growing larger and more diverse in spending power.

Anticipating the surge, Thai tourism businesses began preparing months in advance. Social media posts showed some Phuket merchants recruiting Mandarin-speaking staff as early as two months ahead of the holiday, while popular overseas shopping districts such as Seoul's Myeongdong and Florence in Italy likewise beefed up Chinese-language service to offer smoother experiences for Chinese shoppers during the peak season. The sight of Chinese tourists seemingly "everywhere" abroad also became a widely discussed social media topic recently — from Australian beachside boardwalks to South African streets, from Swiss snow mountains to Southeast Asian markets, users shared posts about hearing Mandarin "no matter where you go," indirectly confirming the breadth and volume of this round of outbound travel. For Thailand, improving service quality and diversifying deeper-experience travel products while accommodating continued visitor growth — in order to secure and sustain its position atop the Golden Week rankings — will be an important focus for tourism industry policy going forward.