Happy Chinese New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone celebrating the Chinese New Year today!  2018 sees the arrival of the Year of the Dog and it is the first time in 60 years that we have seen a Dog year combined with the Earth characteristic.  People born in these years are said to be serious, responsible in work and communicative.

Chinese New Year means that the majority of China takes a vacation at the same time with the majority of city dwellers expected to leave their homes in the major Chinese cities and visit friends and family in rural areas.  China News estimates that 385 million Chinese people will be travelling over this period.  This event dwarfs the other major travel events in the world as the chart and link below highlights. 

https://www.statista.com/chart/12916/the-worlds-largest-migration-is-about-to-begin/

This huge number of travellers is bound to put intense pressure on the rail, road and air infrastructure of this immense country!  This represents approximately one fifth of the country’s population all traveling over the same period of time.