The number of Chinese tourists deciding to travel during the five-day Labour Day holiday at the start of next month could rival or exceed last year’s headcount despite higher global fuel prices, analysts said, adding travellers were likely to prefer shorter trips to save on transport costs.

Domestic flight bookings were up about 8 per cent year on year and domestic package-tour reservations were about 10 per cent higher ahead of the break, even after fuel prices shot up because of the war in Iran, according to a survey by travel marketing and technology firm China Trading Desk.

Rural and second-tier city destinations in China were popular this year, it found, as well as “short-haul” trips to perennial favourites in other parts of East Asia.

“The bigger change is how they travel, not whether they travel,” said China Trading Desk CEO Subramania Bhatt. “Economic factors are now the top travel influence in the survey, and travellers are still willing to go but are making more deliberate, value-checked choices rather than booking blindly.”

China is taking May 1 to 5 off this year for Labour Day, also called May Day. In some parts of China, school spring breaks overlapping with the holiday will give students up to eight days off.

Fuel prices began their precipitous rise after Tehran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a shipping route for some 20 per cent of the world’s oil and gas exports, in response to US-Israeli military strikes which began on February 28. The United States later launched its own blockade of Iranian ports.

According to the International Air Transport Association, the global average jet fuel price for the week ending April 17 was US$184.63 a barrel – more than double the average for the previous year.

The price of diesel fuel – used by long-distance buses – has also risen sharply, with data provider Global Petrol Prices putting the global average on Monday at US$1.55 a litre (US$5.87 per US gallon), up from US$1.20 a litre before the US and Israel attacked Iran.

Higher oil and jet fuel prices translated to a 5 per cent to 10 per cent increase in base air fares, Oxford Economics said in a research note released on April 16. It said that jump was unlikely to throw off an “otherwise positive” growth trajectory for global air passenger demand this year, except for in the Middle East and Africa.