Locoboy speaks truth.
I routinely watch for CNY and plan accordingly. We don't import much but CNY is something one must include in one's calculations. Sometimes it's not even the vendor. I had one air shipment from Shanghai make it to the airport just fine then sit on the apron for a week because holidays impact the carriers as well - at least National Day.
For a bit of anecdotal history - the extended CNY / Spring Festival is a time for families to come together - think Christmas or Thanksgiving. The long celebration came about as rural Chinese went to the coastal areas for employment. If one is working in Tianjin or Shanghai and one's family is in rural central China it became customary to allow a week to get there and a week to get back so many coastal factories shut down for three weeks.
More anecdotal (meaning I could not prove it other than conversing with some Chinese) is that a portion of the impetus for the bullet train network was to ease travel times inside the country. Having most of the whole joint down for the better part of a month has a negative impact on GNP.
A year ago there was a notable labor shortage in the urban areas with factories snagging enough workers that construction trades were bidding up wages.
Our Tianjin supplier is down for three weeks apart from a skeleton staff consisting of people with local family. Our folks in Shanghai tend to work through most of the holiday and run sales on Alibaba due to boredom. Curmudgeonly bastages like me that really don't much care about family are rare - culture is different and less tolerant of old curmudgeons.
See:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/02/world/asia/china-elderly-law/
Thailand, especially Bangkok, is a whole 'nother thing. They celebrate Western New Year, Spring Festival, Songkran New Year in April - they're just always celebrating New Year - shorter duration but more of them and less time to recover from hangovers.
If you've never enjoyed some Tianjin hospitality you're in for a treat.
The drinking customs are well worth learning.
