On February 23rd, major platforms released payment data during the Spring Festival period. A picture of a prosperous consumption, popular travel, and full of New Year's flavor has been unfolded. The 2026 Spring Festival data released in the report "Spring Festival Consumption 'Horse Power' Fully Open" shows that thanks to the support of the super long holiday, the consumption during the Spring Festival of the Year of the Horse continues to rise, and the number of travel, life and entertainment transactions on WeChat Pay has increased by more than 20%. In terms of domestic tourism, there has been a rise in popularity of New Year's Eve tours, winter retreats, and intangible cultural heritage tours. WeChat data shows that among tourist destinations, the number of transactions in Nanchong and Kaifeng scenic spots increased by more than 50% year on year, while the number of transactions in Suzhou, Mount Huangshan, Xi'an and Putian scenic spots increased by more than 30% year on year; During the Spring Festival, the transaction amount of tax-free mini programs in Hainan increased by 81% year-on-year. In terms of cross-border consumer payments, the popularity of destinations with the word "horse" is on the rise. According to WeChat data, Malaysia and Maldives have welcomed a large number of Chinese tourists, with offline transaction consumption increasing by 131% and 186% respectively year-on-year. During the Spring Festival holiday, WeChat mini programs performed well in the global market, with total transaction amounts increasing by over 65% year-on-year. Meanwhile, inbound tourism also showed impressive performance during the Spring Festival period. Overseas inbound tourists have maintained a high-speed growth in the number of offline transactions linked to international bank cards through WeChat, and the daily number of inbound tourists visiting the mini program has increased by more than double compared to the previous period. Among them, the transaction amount of medical beauty related consumption doubled year-on-year, becoming one of the fastest-growing industries for foreign card tourists. WeChat Pay now supports 29 overseas wallets in 12 countries and regions for outsourcing and internal use. Payment data is an important window for observing China's economic vitality and consumption trends. ”Liu Bin, Director of the Financial Research Office at the China (Shanghai) Free Trade Zone Research Institute, stated that the continuous growth of overseas consumer payment transactions in China not only reflects the increasing attractiveness of the Chinese market, but also indirectly confirms the increasingly perfect payment system in China, demonstrating the increasing internationalization and inclusiveness of China's payment services. With the continuous optimization of payment services in key commercial districts and entry ports, relevant institutions have achieved significant results in implementing payment facilitation. The popularization of mobile payment tools has further improved the payment experience of overseas visitors to China, effectively driving the growth of cross-border consumption. In addition, the actual combat data disclosed during the Spring Festival holiday shows that the core AI business has fully broken out: the number of Alipay "AI Pay" users has exceeded 100 million, and the total number of App users has also exceeded 100 million. The CEO of a certain group, Han Xinyi, once revealed that he hopes to use AI to safeguard the wealth and health of users. This vision is summarized as the "two flowers" AI strategy of "rich flowers" and "lucky flowers". Intelligent search has deeply integrated into daily life. According to the top 5 popular search terms on WeChat AI, whether it's "New Year's greetings, Spring Festival Gala program list", or "How to post on the golden circle of friends, how much does the Tang Dynasty fireworks cost, or free time on the Spring Festival highway", users are developing the habit of "asking AI before encountering problems". Bank researcher Lou Feipeng stated that during the Spring Festival, high-frequency and small-scale payment scenarios such as online red envelopes, catering retail, and convenient services remained vibrant. Small and high-frequency transactions, combined with large-scale consumption such as cross-border tourism, jointly promoted the scale of payment transactions and intuitively demonstrated the good trend of China's consumer market resilience enhancement and sustained potential release. The formation of this trend cannot be separated from the continuous protection at the policy level, and is also due to the collaborative efforts of multiple entities such as payment institutions, financial institutions, and fintech companies in improving payment convenience. (New Society)