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Winter Outbound Travel Trends in China: What’s Powering the 2025 Surge?
China outbound travel is entering one of its most dynamic winter seasons. As more travelers seek immersive experiences, snow sports and high-quality winter escapes are becoming the defining theme of 2025’s winter travel trends. Social platforms like Xiaohongshu (RedNote) continue to shape consumer interest, while travel platforms such as Tongcheng Travel (ly.com) reveal a sharp rise in demand for overseas winter destinations.
Together, these insights signal a powerful shift: Chinese travelers are upgrading their winter holidays with premium, experiential, and value-driven snow vacations across the globe.
Xiaohongshu Insights: Snow Sports Dominate Social Buzz
On XHS, winter sports are experiencing explosive growth1.
- #滑雪 (Ski) has generated 4.95 billion views,
- #雪友圈 (Ski-lovers community) reached 450 million views,
- Searches for #亲子滑雪 (Family Skiing) rose 92.86% YoY,
- Searches for #滑雪初学 (Beginner Skiing) jumped 59.89% YoY.
This surge reflects the rising popularity of beginner-friendly trips, parent-child ski holidays, and community-led snow content, accelerating demand for overseas snow destinations this winter travel season.
Tongcheng Insights: Premium and Value-Driven China Outbound Travel
Hot Destinations Defining 2025 Winter Travel
Tongcheng Travel’s latest data highlights that premium overseas vacations are gaining strong consumer recognition.
Looking ahead to Christmas and Chinese New Year holidays, winter travel favorites are trending strongly among Chinese travelers2, they include:
- Hokkaido (Japan)
- Interlaken (Switzerland)
- Aspenal (France)
- Innsbruck (Austria)
- Whistler (Canada)
Outbound winter travel is driven by high-quality, premium itineraries, with most December departures exceeding RMB 10,000 per person. Booking activity is especially strong from Tier 1 cities including Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou. This spike in demand is also boosting popular flight routes such as Beijing–Sapporo and Shanghai–Tokyo.
Visa Policies and High Value Boost Bookings
Since Kazakhstan introduced visa-free entry for Chinese travelers in 2023, winter flight bookings from cities like Urumqi, Almaty and Astana have surged year after year. Beyond visa convenience, Kazakhstan’s globally recognized but affordable ski resorts, such as Shymbulak, Oi-Qaragai, and Ak-Bulak, provide a strong cost-effective proposition. Lower total trip costs for flights, hotels, and ski packages further reinforce travelers’ appetite for cost-effective overseas ski holidays.
Unlock the Winter Outbound Travel Opportunity with iClick
As Chinese winter travelers increasingly pursue premium travel experiences, brands and tourism partners must capture this new force of China’s outbound travel.
At iClick Interactive, we help travel and lifestyle brands capture the segments through data-driven insights, precise audience targeting, and full-funnel marketing strategies across leading OTAs and media ecosystems. We turn winter travel trends into measurable consumer engagement and in-store footfall.
Source:
1: Xiaohongshu: 小红书雪人节3.0
2: Tongcheng Travel: 同程旅行发布冰雪游趋势报告：冰雪游热门目的地哈尔滨居首
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