Multiple Regions Issue New Round of Consumer Vouchers to Activate Spring Economy

Source: Securities Daily Author: Liu Meng

Since March, many regions including Fujian, Yunnan, Henan, Jiangxi, Hubei, Chongqing, and Guangdong have been issuing or deciding to issue a new round of consumer vouchers.

For example, Chongqing recently launched the 2026 “Buy in China · Love Chongqing” Spring Consumption Season. During the event, themes such as car exchanges, home appliances, home improvement, e-commerce live streaming festivals, rural tourism festivals, and folk culture festivals will be promoted, along with the distribution of dining vouchers, shopping vouchers, cultural and tourism vouchers, and fuel vouchers across multiple categories. To unleash the potential of cultural and tourism consumption, Guangdong Province’s Department of Culture and Tourism, in cooperation with travel and payment platforms, is conducting a cultural and tourism consumption subsidy campaign. This initiative targets out-of-town visitors and local residents, distributing a total of 20 million yuan in cultural and tourism vouchers covering hotels, scenic spots, and other scenarios.

Song Xiangqing, Vice President of the China Business Economics Society, told Securities Daily that the recent intensive issuance of consumer vouchers across regions is a targeted measure to implement consumption promotion policies. It leverages small fiscal investments to stimulate large-scale social consumption, balancing benefits for the public and enterprises, and effectively stabilizing market expectations.

In Song Xiangqing’s view, this round of consumer vouchers features four main characteristics: precise targeting, increased力度, innovative models, and diverse coverage. They focus on essential and upgraded scenarios such as dining, retail, cultural tourism, sports, and e-commerce. Instead of broad, indiscriminate spending, they adopt methods like direct discounts, lottery-based applications, and contactless deductions, balancing fairness and efficiency. Additionally, platforms and merchants are encouraged to offer discounts, creating a policy leverage effect.

Zhu Keli, Founder of the New Economy Research Institute, told Securities Daily that this spring’s concentrated issuance of consumer vouchers, which integrates multiple scenarios such as commerce, culture, tourism, sports, and entertainment, extends the consumption chain. It has multiple positive effects on activating spring consumption and prospering the market atmosphere. It can quickly release residents’ consumption potential, convert latent willingness into actual spending, and drive the resurgence of commercial districts, scenic spots, and merchant popularity.

Song Xiangqing believes that consumer vouchers directly reduce residents’ consumption costs, ignite seasonal consumption trends like dining and outdoor activities, and transform seasonal spikes into sustained growth momentum.

This year, the Government Work Report proposed to “stimulate residents’ endogenous consumption motivation and promote policies to boost consumption, ensuring sustained growth.”

Consumer vouchers are one of China’s key policy tools for promoting consumption, with a leverage effect of “small input, big impact.” For example, according to the latest news from the Jing’an District Government in Shanghai, the “Immediately Gifted” consumer vouchers launched from January 22 to March 11 successfully concluded. They covered diverse consumption scenarios such as fashion, beauty, personal care, and boutique chains, with a redemption rate of 96%. They stimulated a turnover of 530 million yuan, a 50% year-on-year increase, and drove nearly 150,000 people to spend close to 200 million yuan, effectively activating consumption potential and promoting quality consumption.

What further work is needed regarding the issuance of consumer vouchers? Song Xiangqing said that to promote sustained consumption growth, regions can optimize issuance mechanisms, implement convenient redemption, expand inclusive coverage, improve data evaluation and supervision, and prevent cashing out or arbitrage. Platforms and merchants should proactively offer discounts, expand applicable scenarios, and improve redemption rates and user experience. Financial institutions can increase payment subsidies and credit support to form policy synergy. Additionally, integrating consumer vouchers with old-for-new exchanges and quality service upgrades can shift from short-term stimulus to long-term cultivation, better converting policy dividends into residents’ consumption willingness and lasting market vitality.

(Edited by: Wen Jing)