The 7-day Lunar New Year Holiday has always been an important barometer of consumption for the entire year. The combined sales of retail and catering enterprises in China rose 8.5% year-on-year to a new high of CNY1.01 trillion from February 4 to10, according to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM). Lunar New Year’s Eve dinners, and dinners with relatives and friends dominated the festival. But a lot more Chinese chose not to cook this year, resulting in an increase in Lunar New Year’s Eve take-out orders by various degrees in different cities. Beijing’s major restaurants saw their revenue up by more than 10% during the holiday compared with the same period of last year. More Chinese also ordered ready to eat meals through e-commerce platforms or hired a chef to cook meals at home. On one online ordering platform, the number of orders for Lunar New Year’s Eve dinners increased 107%, according to MOFCOM.

While making special purchases for the holiday, more Chinese favored imported food such as cranberries from North America, avocados from Myanmar, codfish from New Zealand, lobster from Boston and cherries from Chile. Apart from exotic foreign food, Chinese consumers also paid more attention to product quality, with the sales of organic food, smart home appliances and new electronic devices seeing fast growth.

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com said its sales from February 3 to 7 rose 42.7% year-on-year, with smartphones, computers and home appliances being the top three items in terms of sales value. Cooking utensils posted the most substantial growth at 399% year-on-year, with people tending to prefer higher-end products in this category, the company said.

The Spring Festival once again unleashed China’s annual travel rush, with an increasing number of people opting to celebrate the holiday by traveling to tourist attractions. There was a 19% year-on-year growth in the number of Chinese tourists during the Spring Festival holiday, according to data from Fliggy, an online tourism service provider. A total of 12.59 million air passenger trips were made, up 10.6% from last year’s holiday, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). Around 111,000 flights were made during the period, up 6% year-on-year. Domestic tourism revenues rose 8.2% year-on-year to CNY513.9 billion during the holiday. The number of overseas trips taken by Chinese increased by 28%. Ctrip, a Shanghai-based online travel agency, said countries along the Belt and Road such as Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates and Cambodia are among the most popular outbound destinations. The number of visitors to East European countries increased by nearly 40%.

China UnionPay said transactions over the weeklong Chinese New Year holiday surged 71.5% to a record-high of CNY1.16 trillion. Spending on gold accessories jumped 90% from a year earlier, while cultural entertainment spending more than doubled. The number of payments through UnionPay’s mobile platform increased 2.5 times, and the amount jumped 4.4 times.

During the 40-day travel rush from January 21 to March 1, air travelers are expected to make 73 million trips, up 12%, the Shanghai Daily reports.