Strait of Hormuz, exhausting the middle class during Qingming and May Day.

Hotels, flights, and cruises all get hit with price increases—this middle-class vacation season has the middle class stuck paying for fuel surcharges.

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Hero image | Qatar / Journey.com on-site photo

Sector | Hotels, cruises, civil aviation

01

Yesterday, I came across a post. A girl who had planned to travel during Qingming, after buying tickets on Qatar Airways, totally fell apart emotionally.

With only one or two weeks left before the flight took off, she spent every day following all kinds of news—refreshing on Xiaohongshu and Reddit again and again—until she had somehow worked herself into being half a military expert.

But what really hurt was this: last week, she originally planned to buy tickets on other airlines as backup. So many people around her urged her to wait a bit longer. In the end, she successfully “waited” her original-price 8,000 yuan flight ticket up to 13,000 yuan—then endured it all the way until 23,000 yuan before finally buying, with gritted teeth.

The comments section was full of wailing—everyone had the same kind of experience.

One netizen who also bought a Qatar Airways ticket said they felt it deeply—never had they been so concerned about national affairs. They just couldn’t take it anymore, bought a China Southern Airlines backup instead—luckily prices back then hadn’t gone completely out of control—and then, in the end, bit the bullet and canceled the Qatar Airways ticket.

Scrolling further down, whether it was about refunding and rebooking or waiting a bit longer to change flights, behind every single comment was an overwhelmed traveler. They could only watch the numbers on the budget sheet keep climbing.

In fact, the news that flight prices are rising hasn’t been new since March. But in the past couple of days, the density and intensity are so outlandish you could describe it as unbelievable. Just the skyrocketing fuel surcharges alone are enough to give thrift-minded middle-class travelers an unpleasant wake-up call.

According to Journey.com’s incomplete statistics, fuel surcharges for Spring and Autumn Airlines flights from Shanghai to Kuala Lumpur and Penang jumped directly from 180 yuan to 360 yuan. Flights from Shanghai to popular Japanese destinations like Osaka, Fukuoka, and Nagoya were comparatively gentler, moving from 200 yuan to 312 yuan.

Spring and Autumn isn’t the only case. Shanghai-based Juneyao Airlines’ fuel surcharges from China to Indonesia were raised to 600 yuan. Traveling to Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines also requires 550 yuan. Xiamen Airlines’ fuel costs for flights to Indonesia went up by roughly 15%.

Fuel surcharges for Cathay Pacific and Hong Kong Airlines from Hong Kong have seen even more noticeable increases. A large number of routes saw fuel surcharges double directly. Some routes even raised their fuel surcharge standards two times within a single week.

As for the “Three Major Airlines,” they didn’t hold up either.

China Southern has already sent a fare adjustment notice to its agent channels. On routes between China and Southeast Asia, the increase is 100 yuan; on routes between China and Australia, it’s 270 yuan. On China–United States routes, the economy class goes up by 250 yuan and business class by 500 yuan.

Meanwhile, market sources disclosed that Air China, China Eastern, and Hainan Airlines are also brewing plans to follow the fuel surcharge increases, possibly announcing this within the week.

If rising fuel surcharges on flights was something many people expected, it’s the fact that cruise companies are also charging fuel surcharges that leaves a lot of people completely baffled.

A notice under Dream Cruises’ brand shows that due to Middle East geopolitical issues causing a sharp rise in fuel prices, starting March 20, newly booked Genting Dream cruises will charge each passenger an additional 15 Singapore dollars per night (about 75 yuan RMB) as a fuel surcharge, and this applies to everyone, regardless of whether they’re 2 years old and above.

Also, according to Journey.com’s earlier report: due to an increase in crude oil prices in the Maldives, some hotels have already notified guests in advance that prices are going to rise. Going forward, they will settle at the new prices across the board. From March 15, Furaveri Island had already increased from around 12,000 yuan per person to 15,000 yuan. For Anantara’s two islands, prices are adjusted in sync starting April 1.

A Maldives hotel agent told Journey.com that more price-increase notices for hotels that rely heavily on fuel-generated electricity and the shipping of supplies are still on the way—it’s just a matter of time.

As flight tickets, cruises, and hotels all move upward at the same time, the oil prices churning in the Strait of Hormuz more than 6,000 kilometers away ultimately turn into the jumping numbers on domestic middle-class travelers’ bills.

02

The price-increase bills are right in front of us, yet many people haven’t figured out one thing: the Strait of Hormuz is so far from us—so why are even Maldives hotels and cruises departing from Singapore being pulled into the increase too?

It all starts with a trip powered by a single barrel of oil.

After the Strait of Hormuz gets clogged, one-fifth of the world’s crude oil can’t be shipped out. In early March this year, international crude oil rose from 85 dollars per barrel before the conflict to March 19—surpassing 110 dollars.

A butterfly flaps its wings in the Middle East, and the expected increase in domestic refined fuel pricing for this round has already exceeded 1.2 yuan per liter—a rare single jump in recent years. Even self-drive trips are affected.

Oil prices go up, and then what?

The first to get cut are airlines. Aviation fuel makes up about 30% to 40% of an airline’s total operating costs, which is the largest piece of variable cost.

And aviation jet fuel’s price fluctuations are even more volatile than crude oil. On top of that, airlines also have to deal with constrained refining capacity and rising transportation costs.

In front of airlines, there are only two choices: either they absorb the cost themselves, or they pass it on to passengers. But smaller and midsize airlines have tighter cash flow to begin with. So, in essence, the intensive round of fare hikes over the past two weeks is the industry collectively choosing the latter, with the “Three Major Airlines” subsequently following suit one after another.

Also, this round of flight ticket price increases hasn’t finished yet.

Domestic routes’ fuel surcharges are adjusted once every month on the 5th. The “Three Major Airlines” currently still use the old standards from January. April 5 is the next adjustment window.

If oil prices remain at this level, the industry generally expects a major step-up increase. People traveling around Qingming are just in time for the last window before the adjustment; those traveling around May Day will most likely have to pay the new prices. So for consumers with urgent travel needs, buying tickets early is the way to go.

Cruise bills are even heavier than airplane bills.

Public information shows that a large cruise ship burns 150 to 300 tons of heavy fuel oil every day. If fuel prices go up by 20%, then over a single voyage, the cruise’s fuel cost could increase by tens of millions of dollars.

Cruise companies’ profit margins are already thin. The money made from onboard duty-free shops and casinos simply can’t carry the weight. So Dream Cruises’ approach is very direct: add 15 Singapore dollars per person per night as a charge. It may not look like much at first. For a family of three on a five-night voyage, the bill on disembarkation increases by 225 Singapore dollars—equivalent to more than 1,000 yuan RMB.

Of course, some “smart” cruise companies would try to offset these costs by raising ticket prices under the guise of service fees or tips. But in essence, it’s still “wool taken from the sheep”—the final payer is still the consumer.

As for the island resorts that many people didn’t anticipate would also rise in price, it actually makes a lot of sense.

Let’s take the Maldives as an example. Most high-end resort islands don’t have conditions to connect to the national power grid. The entire island’s air conditioning operation, seawater desalination equipment, and restaurant cooling systems all depend on huge diesel generators roaring day and night.

A surge in crude oil prices means that every barrel of diesel shipped to the island is aggressively eating into the resort’s everyday profits.

Even worse is logistics. The island produces no consumer goods at all—whether it’s a bottle of water or a steak needs to be shipped in by small boats from far away. As diesel prices rise, maritime logistics costs naturally rise as well.

Maldives coco bodu hithi hotel / Journey.com on-site photo

In the middle of the night, hotel management does the math and finds that based on last year’s room rates, welcoming guests would basically result in not being able to make ends meet. There’s no way to tough it out. The only self-rescue is to directly raise the per-night room price to maintain service standards and keep the company running.

With these layers of hidden costs stacking up, they ultimately converge into the total number on the Qingming and May Day travel bills—one that makes people gasp when they see it.

03

The high premium that the middle class pays for this vacation, in essence, is them paying for a world full of uncertainty.

And when the suddenly overloaded bills hit, most middle-class people’s bodies are often more honest than their mouths. They “vote with their feet,” quickly changing their travel decisions for the upcoming Qingming and May Day periods.

Thus, this wave of fuel surcharge hikes acts like a watershed moment, splitting the Qingming and May Day travel market into two completely different halves.

Lying flat in the Maldives, or flying to Singapore to board and experience an overseas cruise—these were originally the standard holiday packages that many middle-class families could reach just by stretching their toes. Now the travel threshold has been raised dramatically.

The extra several thousand yuan of fuel surcharges becomes an invisible filter, screening out price-sensitive customers.

East is sunrise and west is rain. Meanwhile, domestic cross-province and nearby trips get sprayed with good fortune. Consumer shifting becomes the most practical choice for middle-class families.

Compared with cross-border flights where you have to watch international situations change day by day, the high-speed rail network driven by the national power grid provides ordinary people with the greatest sense of security. You don’t need to worry about having to pay an extra few hundred yuan in fuel surcharges after buying your tickets.

Those travelers who originally planned to fly to Korea, Japan, or Southeast Asia can completely turn around and head to domestic cross-province high-speed rail to lower their travel budget.

During periods of tightening finances, drawing closer in travel distance and lowering consumption budgets will become the core guiding idea for this batch of travelers in planning their trips.

As a result, for China’s major provinces in domestic tourism, it seems that a “closure of the Strait of Hormuz” could actually be good news.

But if we look a bit further into the future, this is only the beginning.

Even if this batch of middle-class travelers completely gives up on going abroad, the overall travel costs in 2026 are still destined to be much higher than in the past few years.

Just like the adjustment of fuel surcharges on domestic routes is only a matter of when, the pricing of travel products pulls on the entire chain. Once the upstream transportation arteries raise prices, downstream tour-group trips, self-guided package itineraries, and local-arrangement services inevitably rise as well.

The consumption split in the tourism market will become more severe than ever. People with shrinking wallets can only look for a sense of ease within a limited radius of cities, while those with the means will have to pay even more real money than before for the same destinations.

People in the tourism industry also have to face a colder commercial reality: the era of low-priced tourism has likely truly come to an end.

And over the past few years, the whole tourism industry has been extremely over-competitive. Travel agencies, hotels, and airlines fought desperately for customer flow with price wars. Everyone was losing money to gain headlines, trying to lure people in with ultra-low prices first.

Now the situation has completely changed. When the cost of filling up a single airplane’s fuel approaches the total revenue of discounted tickets, any business logic trying to rely on low prices to sell in volume collapses instantly.

Under this kind of unavoidable macro operating pressure, all tourism operators have no choice but to abandon those low-priced marketing products that don’t make money—or even lose money—and put the focus back on core businesses with profit margins and the ability to cover soaring operating costs. That is the only option.

At the same time, as the world becomes more and more expensive, no matter how much this batch of middle-class people miss those old days when you could casually book a cheap flight and spend a weekend on tropical islands, they’ll have to learn to adapt to this brand-new set of bills in front of them.