China is bracing for a record surge in cross-regional travel over the coming Labour Day holiday, as the country’s tourism sector continues to see strong demand amid government efforts to boost consumption.

The domestic transport network is projected to handle 1.52 billion cross-regional trips – about 304 million trips per day – over the five-day public holiday, up 4 per cent compared with the same period last year, the Ministry of Transport announced on Tuesday.

Public transport passenger flows and vehicle traffic are both expected to reach record highs, according to the ministry – a positive sign for China’s push to boost domestic demand, as major public holidays play an outsize role in driving service consumption.

While travel is set to rise across the board, cars remain the dominant form of transport. The ministry estimates that road trips will account for 91.6 per cent of total journeys during the holiday, with around 64 million vehicles expected to use China’s highways per day on average – double the usual number.

“The average daily car rental volume nationwide is expected to reach 700,000, a 30 per cent increase year on year,” said Gao Bo, deputy head of the ministry’s transport services department.

Nearly one-quarter of the cars on China’s highways over the holiday – or 15.4 million vehicles per day – will be new-energy vehicles such as electric cars, according to the ministry. New-energy vehicle traffic is expected to be 33 per cent higher than last year, a sign of the sector’s rapid growth amid high petrol prices driven by the Iran war.