GLOBAL HOLIDAYS
There is a beautiful array of celebrations around the world, from Holi in India to the Chinese New Year, we love to see the celebrations, but they can impact global supply chain management.
To help plan your shipments and minimise the impact of global holidays why not take a look at some of the Global National Holidays below and download our PDF calendar.
中国新年
Chinese New Year
CNY 2025 is ‘Year of the Snake’ and the snake is full of unspoken mysteries. Other countries that celebrate the holiday are Indonesia, Malaysia, North Korea, Singapore, South Korea, Vietnam, and Brunei. Factories and businesses will be closed from the 28th of January to the 3rd of February as a minimum, but some businesses will remain closed for between 2-4 weeks.
JAPAN’S GOLDEN WEEK
Golden Week
Golden week 2025 will be celebrated from the 29th of April until the 5th of May. It is a series of four holidays closely spaced together and observed at the end of April and beginning of May in Japan. The four holidays are Shōwa Day (April 29), Constitution Day (May 3), Greenery Day (May 4), and Children’s Day (May 5). Factories and businesses will be closed.
TOUR DE FRANCE
‘Le Tour’
‘Le Tour’ will start on the 29th of June and finish on the 21st of July, hosting 21 stages over the whole of France. This will cause widespread disruption across the country with road closures for the stages and increased tourism. For more information on the various stages of the tour and a downloadable PDF, please follow this link to the official website.
NATIONAL DAY
China’s National Day
National Day in China is a holiday celebrated between the 1st and 7th of October to mark the formation of the People’s Republic of China. The holiday is also celebrated by China’s two special administrative regions: Hong Kong and Macau. This is a week of rest meaning businesses and factories will be closed causing disruption to the supply chain.
When are Peak Season’s in Freight?
There is no exact science to Peak Season’s in Freight, this can change year on year due to market trends, conflict & war, natural disasters, lack of space or blank sailings and a whole host of other reasons. However, you can guarantee that the busiest seasons within freight will be towards the Christmas Period and Chinese New Year.
Why is this?
Companies will be looking to bring in their products for Christmas, so companies that plan properly will be shipping, or looking to ship, containers via Sea from August onwards, meaning that we will start to see demand for freight steadily increasing through September, October, November and December. This busy period will continue into January as companies will be looking to secure products from the Far East before Chinese New Year.
Latest figures suggest that China equates for 28.4% of Global Manufacturing, and factories can be closed from anywhere between a week and 4 weeksduring this period. Buyers will seek to ship their stock before their supplier’s factory close, this creates a high demand for space and reduces available space at the same time before the holiday begins. The same situation occurs once the factories return to work as they work to catch up.
WHAT CAN I DO TO AVOID PEAK PERIODS?
This is a very difficult thing to do, however, not impossible. The best advice we could give is speak to one of our team, we can use our industry experience to best advice on processes to minimise the risk of overspending on freight movements during peak periods.
We work alongside our VIP clients to deeply understand their business and shipping requirements, we can perform a deep dive into their forecasts to identify stock trends alongside projected peak & tough periods and investigate the best possible options to minimise costs and maximise efficiency in their logistics processes.
How do you do this?
Utilising our experience & industry knowledge and being in tune with Global Freight News we can help predict shipping costs, compare what is more cost effective between paying freight at an expected busy time or arranging a warehouse storage solution, fast services against more cost-effective solutions and generate a yearly plan for your supply chain.
For example, when planning stock needs for the busy Christmas period, we may advise our customers to choose cost-effective services in August with longer transit times and arrange warehousing once in the UK. This could be a more cost-effective option and/or help minimise the impact of delayed shipping due to production problems, unpredictable market conditions/rates and lost services through changing shipping line schedules throughout November and December.
