Source: People's Daily
Source: Civil Aviation Administration of China, China National Railway Group, China Tourism Research Institute, China Performance Industry Association
Jiangsu Kunshan Dayuwan Commercial Street, bright lights at night. Photo by Yuan Xinyu (Image China)
Students conduct research and practical activities in Handan, Hebei Province. Photo by Ma Yaqing (Photo China)
Tourists experience paper fishing at an ancient papermaking art museum in Quanzhou, Fujian Province. Photo by Xu Huasen (Image China)
Core reading
This summer, the cultural tourism market in various places has recovered significantly, and new tourism formats such as "study tours", "parent-child tours" and "night tours" have become new engines to stimulate tourism consumption.
The supply of rich and high-quality tourism products better meets the needs of tourists, the release of cultural tourism consumption demand is accelerated, and the supply and demand ends are working hard to promote the better development of the cultural tourism market.
The summer tourism season that has just passed is a window to observe the popularity of the cultural tourism market. According to the "2023 Summer Tourism Market Monitoring Report" recently released by the China Tourism Research Institute, according to comprehensive estimates, the number of domestic tourists this summer (June-August) reached 1.839 billion, achieving domestic tourism revenue of 1.21 trillion yuan. This summer's tourism popularity is significantly higher than the same period in 2019, and the number of tourists received by many scenic spots has reached an all-time high.
Market heat continues to pick up
"Go!" Recently, the "Thousands of Cars" self-driving tour through the Daxing'an Ridge with the theme of "Dream Arshan and Northern Xinjiang Camping Life" was launched. Accompanied by the departure signal, the captain of dozens of RVs and self-driving cars honked his horn. Led by the lead car, the convoy embarked on a self-driving journey. The convoy will cross the Daxing'an Ridge, cruise from Aarshan City all the way to Aarshan Port, experience the China-Mongolia border tour, and finally return to Lujiawan Camp in Arshan City.
Feel the fun of driving and enjoy the scenery along the way. Since the beginning of this year, the cultural tourism market has recovered rapidly, and self-driving travel has become a mainstream way of travel. The vigorous development of self-driving travel is a microcosm of the continuous recovery of the cultural tourism market. Data released by various travel platforms show that the summer cultural tourism market has strong recovery momentum. According to data from Meituan and Dianping, since the summer vacation, domestic tourism consumption orders (including hotels and guesthouses, attraction tickets, transportation, etc.) have achieved a large increase compared with the same period in 2019. According to the "2023 Summer Cultural Tourism Data Report" released by Douyin Life Service, its users have checked in more than 400 million trips and actively searched for travel-related content more than 500 million times, a year-on-year increase of 147%.
The report of China Tourism Academy pointed out that the summer market has opened steadily and high, and the industrial boom has spread from upstream formats represented by transportation, accommodation, catering, etc., to downstream formats represented by shopping and entertainment. Occupancy rates in accommodation facilities increased in various regions. In the first half of the year, the tourism, shopping and entertainment industry, which was relatively lagging behind, was also positively transmitted by the market boom, such as concerts bringing hundreds of millions of yuan in revenue to Haikou and other places. The distribution of passenger flow has spread from major source cities to many remote destinations. North China, Northeast China, Southwest China, as well as parts of Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang, generally accounted for more tourists than in 2019.
Multi-format recovery accelerated
According to data released by the China Tourism Research Institute, the demand for summer tourism this year is unprecedentedly strong, and tourists are going further and playing longer outside. Harbin, Changchun, Urumqi, Kunming and other areas with latitudes or altitudes are popular destinations for summer tourism, with a high proportion of foreign tourists. Foreign tourists from some typical destinations in Tibet, Qinghai and Xinjiang once accounted for more than 75%.
During the summer, urban destinations with rich cultural heritage and high convenience are more popular. Concerts, music festivals, etc. are becoming important factors to attract young people to travel, and various festivals and activities have become a new engine to stimulate tourism consumption. "Follow the show to travel", many popular performance venues have become popular check-in places in the local tourism market. Lu Mengxi, president of Meituan Cultural Tourism Research Institute, believes that the performance economy is a specific form of integration of cultural consumption and tourism consumption, and the continuous activity of the performance market is conducive to attracting more tourists and driving the growth of accommodation, transportation, catering and other formats in the region.
Nighttime cultural and tourism spending continues to heat up. According to relevant platform data, since the summer, the search volume of "night tour" has increased by about 80% compared with the same period last year, and the life service categories represented by catering and dine-in, leisure and entertainment have ushered in the peak of all-day consumption at 7 pm.
"Family trip" is one of the important summer travel scenes. According to relevant platform data, in July, the number of hotel bookings related to "parent-child travel" increased by 150% compared with the same period in 2019, the number of "children's meal" group purchase orders increased by nearly 400% year-on-year, and the number of catering outlets providing children's meal services increased by more than 155% year-on-year. Search volume for "family photos" increased by 45% month-on-month.
New supply inspires new vitality
This year, there are also more options for resorts. Recently, at the opening ceremony of the 2023 China (Arshan) Tourism Conference hosted by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 19 ski tourism resorts were awarded national ski tourism resorts. In recent years, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the State General Administration of Sports have continuously expanded the supply of high-quality tourism products, built high-level ski sports facilities, and provided high-quality tourism and vacation services, and identified and launched two batches of 19 national-level ski tourism resorts in 2022 and 2023 respectively.
In the summer, leisure vacation has become the choice of more and more consumers. In recent years, the assessment of national-level tourist resorts has continued to be carried out, and national-level tourism and leisure cities and neighborhoods have been launched one after another, meeting the diversified and personalized leisure vacation needs of the people, and also injecting new impetus into the heating up of the tourism market.
With the deep integration of culture and tourism and the continuous development of the market, the consumption demand for cultural tourism in the mainland has shown a significant upgrading trend. The operators on the supply side closely follow the new trend of cultural tourism consumption upgrading, create new products, new formats and new scenarios of cultural tourism, and launch more high-quality products and services that meet the tastes of tourists, which has stimulated a stronger development momentum in the cultural tourism market.
Watching competitions, appreciating folklore, tasting food... In Rongjiang County, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou Province, "Guizhou Village Chao" has created a new consumption scene and attracted many tourists. On the Douyin platform, there are more than 17,000 topics related to "Guizhou Village Super", and netizens have watched more than 10 billion times, liked nearly 200 million times, and shared more than 8 million times. Rongjiang County's catering orders on Douyin increased by 113% month-on-month and 327% year-on-year.
Behind the popularity of "Guizhou Village Super" reflects the current demand of tourists to experience the original local culture and rural events under the background of the current cultural tourism consumption upgrade. According to local government statistics, within one month, the "village super" attracted more than 420,000 tourists, including 303,900 local tourists and 116,100 foreign tourists. In May this year, Rongjiang County received 1,073,700 tourists, a year-on-year increase of 39.73%, and achieved a comprehensive tourism income of 1.241 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 52.08%.
The relevant person in charge of the Resource Development Department of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said that the mainland tourism market is vast, and in the next step, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism will continue to enrich the supply of cultural and tourism products, promote the adaptation of cultural and tourism supply and demand, release the vitality of cultural and tourism consumption, and help the economy continue to recover with the recovery and revitalization of tourism. (Reporter Wang Ke)
People's Daily(Version 07, 06.09.2023)