Tourism drives holiday economy

Travel to destinations with rich Chinese folk activities and vibrant festivities accelerated during Dragon Boat Festival, driving up tourist numbers and consumption.

Figures unveiled by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on Tuesday show that domestic destinations witnessed around 119 million visits during the three-day holiday, up 5.7 percent year-on-year.

These visits generated consumption of over 42.7 billion yuan ($5.94 billion), a year-on-year increase of about 5.9 percent.

Dragon Boat Festival commemorates Qu Yuan, a poet of the Chu State during the Warring States Period (475-221 BC).

Places that maintain a well-preserved tradition of folk and cultural activities such as racing dragon boats and eating zongzi — sticky rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves — were big draws.

Foshan, in the southern province of Guangdong, where dragon boat races flourished during the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911), has gone viral online in recent years. The traditional boat races saw flight bookings to the city soar 138 percent and hotel bookings rise 51 percent, year-on-year, according to travel portal Trip.com Group.

Online travel agency Qunar noted that spending on folk activities was by far the highlight of the holiday. Figures provided by Qunar show that as of Monday, the last day of the holiday, searches for key words such as "dragon boat" and "zongzi" on its platform ballooned 2.5 times over the previous month.

"Folk activity experiences are becoming the secret recipe to energize local tourism consumption. We think that more lesser known destinations with an intangible cultural heritage and richer Chinese cultural vibes will become popular destinations for Chinese travelers in the future," Qunar said.

Overlapping with International Children's Day on Sunday, this year's festival holiday also saw an increasing number of tours by families who preferred to visit amusement parks or short-distance destinations — both within the country and abroad.

According to Tuniu, also a travel portal, families with younger children were one of the major contributors to the tourism market this holiday as it came a few days prior to the national college entrance examination.

Tuniu said that Shanghai, Beijing and Sanya in Hainan province were top choices for traveling families. These cities feature animal and botanical parks as well as popular amusement parks such as the Shanghai Disney Resort and Universal Beijing Resort.

Overseas destinations with shorter travel time, especially within three hours, were also favored by both families and individuals. These hot spots included Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea, according to Trip.com.

"My husband and I sought leave for two days and converted the three-day holiday into a five-day one. Our trip to Japan was a gift to our 12-year-old daughter for International Children's Day. I think she might have been mostly impressed by Tokyo Disneyland," said Qin Yuanyuan, a 42-year-old from Beijing.

China recorded nearly 5.91 million cross-border trips during the three-day holiday, which concluded on Monday, marking a 2.7 percent increase year-on-year, according to data released on Tuesday by the National Immigration Administration.