China's Golden Week Is Booking Seoul First
Take Monday through Wednesday off and the holiday can run thirteen days. On Trip.com, Seoul is the overseas city selling hardest this Golden Week. Busan, Cheongju, and Daegu are racing up behind it.
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Korea’s harvest holiday just ended. China’s break is about to get long. Mid-Autumn was Friday. National Day starts Thursday. Anyone who can take Monday through Wednesday off has thirteen days, and a lot of those tickets are for Seoul.
Trip.com Group, the Chinese company behind the Trip.com and Ctrip apps, put out its Golden Week numbers on September 20. For the official week, October 1 through 7, Seoul was the overseas city that sold the most. Flight bookings there were up 91 percent from the same stretch last year.
Those are daily averages on their sites against last October, which is the clearest picture we have of what Chinese travelers are buying this week.
Thirteen days if you spend the leave
More than half of those outbound flights leave before October 1. Volume peaked on the 25th, and Trip.com expects another rush on the 30th. Friday’s wave already flew. Tuesday is the one still sitting on the calendar.
The average trip on their books runs more than nine days. Hotel stays of a week or longer are up 123 percent.
Nine days is too long for the same three palaces. You need a second neighborhood, or a second city.
The cities behind Seoul
People are already buying past Seoul. Trip.com said flight bookings to Busan, Cheongju, and Daegu also rose by three-digit percentages. It did not give the exact figures.
Cheongju is an inland city with its own airport, the kind Chinese holiday airlines add when Seoul gets expensive. Daegu is an hour and forty minutes from Seoul Station on the fast train. Busan is the coastal city you already know if you have done Korea twice.
Jeju landed among the ten most booked outbound flight destinations, next to Bali. If the capital feels like a queue, the island is the version of Korea that still has a beach.
Japan is still selling, on the same report, to travelers from Malaysia, Thailand, and South Korea. The Chinese list just happens to be heavier on Korea this time.
If you wanted a quiet week
If you can start after October 7, start then. The official holiday ends that Wednesday. The following week is the first that feels like a normal Seoul.
If Thursday is locked, book dinner tonight. Gyeongbokgung’s evening Starlight Tour is closed from September 30 through October 4 while the palace gets ready for a music festival, the Korea Heritage Service said in August. Go in daylight if you want the courtyard. Eat earlier than you would in March.
Tuesday is when the next wave leaves China. Keep Seoul for the days you need, and give one to Busan or Daegu.
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