The "spendathon" over the Golden Week holiday offers a glimpse into how China's shifting consumption pattern is reshaping the economic landscape.
In the week-long National Day holiday, Oct. 1-7, retail and catering firms across China rang up sales of 1.08 trillion yuan (170 billion U.S. dollars), a healthy 11 percent increase from a year ago, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) on Thursday.
This year was the first time that sales have exceeded 1 trillion yuan since Golden Week was named a national holiday in 1999.
The holiday, and spending patterns, illustrates the rising power of consumption and the role it plays in driving economic growth in China, not to mention the increasing purchasing power of the Chinese.
As consumers' demands evolve, services, instead of material products, are starting to dominate the consumption structure, according to a report published by an MOC research institute.
Tourism continued to prosper during the holiday week. Some 8.96 million passengers traveled on domestic and international flights, while 98.8 million trips were made by train over the 10-day period before and during the holiday, both up from a year ago, according to official statistics.
Neighbouring countries like Japan, the Republic of Korea and Thailand, as well as Europe and the United States, were the most popular destinations, according to online travel agency Ctrip.
The entertainment business also thrived. On the first day of the holiday week, cinema box office returns surged 53.66 percent year on year to 315 million yuan, a record high growth.
"We can see that this trend -- consumption of services -- will continue to make an increasing contribution to GDP," said Zhao Ping, an economist with the MOC research institute.
The service sector already accounts for half of the national GDP, while consumption accounts for 60 percent of China's economic growth.
