Holiday not hindered by heat

Bookings, related revenue ramp up as travelers shrug off scorching weather

While hot weather scorched the land during the just-concluded Dragon Boat Festival holiday, it didn't impact people's passion for travel, and industry insiders said the holiday travel boom is a prelude to an expected increase in summer tourism.

As a traditional Chinese festival, the Dragon Boat Festival holiday usually involves activities such as dragon boat races and the consumption of glutinous rice dumplings, known as zongzi, for good luck.

The latest figures from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism show that the holiday period — from Thursday to Saturday — saw 106 million domestic trips made, up 32.3 percent year-on-year.

That figure was 112.8 percent of that seen during the same holiday period in 2019, several months before the COVID-19 epidemic began, according to the ministry.

Tourism-related revenue during the holiday exceeded 37.31 billion yuan ($5.2 billion), a year-on-year rise of 44.5 percent, accounting for 94.9 percent of the revenue generated during the same period in 2019.

Reports from travel agencies confirmed the market boom.

According to travel portal Qunar, bookings made on its platform for flight tickets to domestic destinations during the holiday were over 20 percent higher than in 2019, while bookings for hotels saw a 1.6-fold growth from that year.

"This year's Dragon Boat Festival holiday showed the best tourism performance in the past five years, further proof that the tourism market saw great progress over the first half of the year," said Shen Jiani, a senior researcher with Trip.com Group, an online travel services provider.

With heat waves battering the nation during the holiday, destinations with coastal views or with mild climates and pleasant temperatures were popular choices for tourists.

Trip.com said that searches for phrases such as "avoiding heat waves" rose by 50 percent month-on-month on its platform during the holiday. Destinations such as the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in northwestern China and the Yanbian Korean autonomous prefecture in northeastern Jilin province were popular among users.

Xiao Bing, Trip.com's local guide in Xinjiang, said that the number of travelers he received rose significantly over the past two weeks, and he had to work as late as 2 am during the holiday.

"Some travelers have even booked tours for the National Day holiday (in October) already," he said.

According to travel portal Tuniu, the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions remained the top two cross-border destinations for its users during the holiday. Coastal overseas destinations in Asia, including Thailand, the Maldives and Malaysia, as well as in European countries such as Spain and Portugal, were also popular among travelers.

"The May Day holiday was a strategic turning point, marking the normalized development of the domestic tourism market, and the Dragon Boat Festival holiday is a landmark for the tourism recovery of inbound and outbound travel, meaning that the nation's tourism industry is entering a full recovery period," said Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Academy.

He cited figures from the National Immigration Administration, which showed that the total number of inbound and outbound visits during the holiday was over 60 percent of that seen in 2019.

The increase was mainly due to travel promotions from neighboring countries and regions such as Japan and South Korea and those in Southeast Asia, as well as the recovery of international travel services, he added.

Feng Rao, dean of the tourism research academy at Mafengwo, a travel services and social networking platform, said the Dragon Boat Festival holiday is usually taken as a bellwether for the summer tourism market. Considering the performance of the industry during the holiday, he expects travel to boom over the summer and for the nation's tourism industry to continue to recover.

Qunar said that bookings for summer travel have increased rapidly on its platform as students prepare for their summer holidays.

It said that as of Friday, bookings for summer flights were 2.2 times higher than those made during the previous week, and long-distance tours to Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu in Sichuan province and Kunming in Yunnan province have been popular travel choices.

Destinations in coastal cities such as Qingdao and Weihai in Shandong province are also attracting attention, as are border regions such as Xinjiang and the Tibet autonomous region, which have more pleasant temperatures and highland views, and Yunnan, which offers a milder climate and more exotic cultures and cuisine, according to Qunar.