China’s mammoth Spring-Festival migration—already the world’s largest annual movement of people—shifted up another gear on 8 February. China State Railway Group (China Rail) projected that 13.25 million passengers would travel by train on Saturday, the seventh day of the 40-day ‘Chunyun’ period. To absorb the surge the operator scheduled 1,688 additional services, including a record number of overnight high-speed trains on the Beijing–Guangzhou, Beijing–Shanghai and Beijing–Harbin corridors.
The railways are only one piece of a gigantic, multimodal jigsaw. Civil-aviation authorities expect to handle 19,614 flights—equivalent to 2.39 million seats—while highway and airport authorities have warned of weather-related closures in parts of Shanxi, Sichuan, Guizhou and Xinjiang.
For international travelers still sorting out entry formalities, VisaHQ can streamline the process before the journey even begins. Its China desk (https://www.visahq.com/china/) guides applicants through every visa category, offers real-time status tracking, and coordinates secure document delivery—saving valuable days that can instead be spent fine-tuning travel plans around the festival rush.
![China moves 13.25 million rail passengers on 7th day of Spring-Festival rush, adds 1,688 extra trains]()
For international mobility managers the numbers matter because the domestic network is the backbone that connects foreign executives arriving in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other gateways with inland manufacturing hubs and Tier-2 consumer markets. The 24-hour deployment of bilingual “railway ambassadors” at major stations and the expansion of contactless ticket gates that can read foreign passports—piloted last year in Shanghai Hongqiao—have shortened average boarding times to under eight minutes, according to China Rail.
Corporations running tight itineraries can therefore expect smoother post-arrival connections, but they should also brace for crowding at key interchanges and factor in potential weather disruptions. Travel-management companies recommend booking first-class or business-class seats on high-speed services at least 15 days in advance and building a two-hour buffer into schedules.
China Rail’s real-time data feed is available through the 12306 app in English, and large employers can apply for group-ticket allocations—useful for factory start-ups that need to move entire installation crews across the country. The railway operator said it will continue to add “rolling” extra services whenever seat-occupancy ratios exceed 95 percent.
The railways are only one piece of a gigantic, multimodal jigsaw. Civil-aviation authorities expect to handle 19,614 flights—equivalent to 2.39 million seats—while highway and airport authorities have warned of weather-related closures in parts of Shanxi, Sichuan, Guizhou and Xinjiang.
For international travelers still sorting out entry formalities, VisaHQ can streamline the process before the journey even begins. Its China desk (https://www.visahq.com/china/) guides applicants through every visa category, offers real-time status tracking, and coordinates secure document delivery—saving valuable days that can instead be spent fine-tuning travel plans around the festival rush.
For international mobility managers the numbers matter because the domestic network is the backbone that connects foreign executives arriving in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other gateways with inland manufacturing hubs and Tier-2 consumer markets. The 24-hour deployment of bilingual “railway ambassadors” at major stations and the expansion of contactless ticket gates that can read foreign passports—piloted last year in Shanghai Hongqiao—have shortened average boarding times to under eight minutes, according to China Rail.
Corporations running tight itineraries can therefore expect smoother post-arrival connections, but they should also brace for crowding at key interchanges and factor in potential weather disruptions. Travel-management companies recommend booking first-class or business-class seats on high-speed services at least 15 days in advance and building a two-hour buffer into schedules.
China Rail’s real-time data feed is available through the 12306 app in English, and large employers can apply for group-ticket allocations—useful for factory start-ups that need to move entire installation crews across the country. The railway operator said it will continue to add “rolling” extra services whenever seat-occupancy ratios exceed 95 percent.
