Lunar New Year expected to provide financial relief after a spending fall over Christmas

Sydney is gearing up for a financial windfall from one of the largest Lunar New Year celebrations in years in which hotel rooms and restaurants have been booked out.

Artist Andrew Yee who created the Lunar New Year dragon design for Sydney's CBD light rail.

A large green dragon the size of three tram cars has for the past few days done laps around Sydney city as preparations take place for one of the largest celebrations in the world.

The city is beginning to glow red and the economic impact of Lunar New Year has grown so large it has become impossible to ignore.

Across Sydney’s hotel scene, demand is so high it’s a struggle to find a room in the CBD where the average price this weekend sits at about $400 a night. Even the hostels are charging a premium for what little space they have left, with prices on booking.com sitting between $175 to $260 a night.

LNY is growing year on year, up 16 percentage points in 2024 with an over 80 per cent occupancy rate, says Accommodation Australia chief executive Michael Johnson.

Accommodation Australia chief Michael Johnson.

“It’s not just the hotels that benefit, the whole visitor economy benefits. The restaurants over the next couple of days will be absolutely chockers,” Mr Johnson told The Australian. “It is one of those periods we now mark in our calendars.”

Sydney’s place as the centre of Australia’s LNY celebration can no longer be contested, as tourists and out-of-towners flock into the harbour city to see friends and celebrate in the city’s Chinatown.

Mr Johnson said while not quite on par, LNY demand on the hotel industry was increasingly hot on the heels of the Western new year of December 31.

Over this period the number of Chinese guests staying in hotels skyrocket and many take to putting in extra effort including special menus, he said.

LNY spending this year will provide a great deal of relief to the economy after Australians more broadly had pulled back on discretionary spending, Australian Retailers Association chief executive Paul Zahra said.

“Chinese New Year, or LNY in other cultures, presents a unique opportunity for retailers and has cemented itself on the Australian retail calendar,” he said.

Artist Andrew Yee’s Lunar New Year design on Sydney’s light rail.

This year was shaping up to be one of the biggest celebrations in several years amid a recent influx of tourists and migrants, Mr Zahra said.

“There’s a notable impact on the hospitality sector. Restaurants, hotels, and travel-related businesses especially stand to benefit as they are directly linked to the festivities and the traditions of family gatherings and travel.”

Many retailers had spent weeks preparing for LNY, ordering in stock and dressing up the interiors of their stores, said National Retail Association deputy chief executive Lindsay Carroll.

Mother Chu owner Alan Chu. Picture: Jane Dempster

“The ABS data from the Christmas sales season revealed discretionary spending took the biggest hit,” she said. “Department stores, clothing footwear and personal accessory retailing, and food-related industries are likely to see some recovery in sales from LNY.”

Alan Chu, who runs Mother Chu’s in an arcade that connects Sussex St to Dixon St, Chinatown, said he’d noticed an influx of tourists from China, Taiwan and other Southeast Asian countries in recent days.

Sometimes over LNY there were more tourists than locals in Chinatown so Mother Chu’s had put on more staff over this weekend in case things got busier than usual, he said.

Brands are also beginning to notice. Swatch has introduced several dragon-faced watches, Casetify brought in Year of The Dragon phone cases, Culture Kings introduced red and gold caps, July brought out red and gold luggage tags and sneaker brand Pushas began selling Nike’s new gold and red Air Jordan 1s.

Sydney artists and twin brothers Andrew and Chris Yee.

The period is increasingly bringing opportunities to local artists who are being commissioned to tell their stories. Among them are the Yee twins, Andrew and Chris, from the Sydney suburb of Ryde.

Andrew Yee is the brains behind the dragon-themed design on Sydney’s light rail network, a work commissioned by the City of Sydney. Chris Yee sketched the mural on display at McDonald’s Darling Square.

Andrew Yee said when he was first sent the brief by friends, he thought to himself “it would be really easy just to put a dragon on three cars”.

Chris Yee's artwork at McDonald's Darling Harbour in Sydney.

“I thought to myself there was an opportunity to tell a really interesting story with this kind of moving canvas that’s going up and down George St and through Haymarket,” he said. “I then kind of came up with this idea for the dragon being a vehicle that is carrying the past of Chinatown and the present into the future.”

Mr Yee said the design represented the beginning of the 20th century, the late ’80s and now.

The work of Mr Yee’s twin brother, Chris, will be on display in McDonald’s Darling Square for two weeks from Saturday. A McDonald’s spokeswoman said the store was excited to commission the work.

“At Macca’s, we’re committed to representing the incredible diversity of our crew and the communities we serve. We’re excited to partner with Chris to celebrate diversity and create more of those feel-good Macca’s moments that our customers know and love,” she said.

Chinese Australian Forum president Simon Chan.

Chinese Australian Forum president Simon Chan said not many people considered the economic effect of Lunar New Year on the economy but the numbers would be interesting to crunch.

“One can obviously tell that a lot of people attend these events. I don’t know if anyone has that figure but it would be good to acknowledge that it does bring a lot of benefit to the economy,” he said.

Chinatown was still recovering from Covid-19 and the construction of the light rail but the atmosphere around Dixon St had been lively over the past few days, he said.