This past summer, the tourist market was as hot as the weather. With the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day super long holiday approaching, bookings for related tourism products continue to heat up. According to data from a number of online travel platforms, the long-term travel market during the Mid-Autumn Festival National Day holiday has grown rapidly, with some niche destinations performing well, and bookings for outbound products are rising rapidly.
The tourism market has recovered across the board
Crowded airports, railway stations, and bustling scenic spots have become clear evidence of the recovery of the tourism market. According to the China Tourism Research Institute, the number of domestic tourists in the country reached 1.839 billion this summer, achieving domestic tourism revenue of 1.21 trillion yuan, and the number of tourists received by most destinations reached an all-time high.
Parent-child families are the main force of the summer tourism market. According to Ctrip.com, families are the fastest growing group in summer air ticket bookings, with an increase of more than 50% over the same period in 2019, with parent-child air tickets having the highest increase in bookings, up 56% from the same period in 2019. Study tours are a popular summer product, and the search volume of study tours on Fliggy Travel has increased by more than 2.3 times compared with last summer.
The superposition effect of cultural and tourism integration is prominent. From July to August, many second- and third-tier cities became venues for large-scale performance projects. Going to a city for a show, concerts and music festivals drive a large number of people to flow across regions. For example, the first Bubble Island Music Festival held in Tianjin in July attracted more than 60,000 visitors, of which about 70% were from Beijing, Hebei and other regions. While bringing ticket revenue, the performance also produces a clustering effect in a short period of time, driving the growth of consumption in tourism, transportation, accommodation, catering, shopping and other fields.
According to data from the China Performance Industry Association, the number of performances, box office revenue and spectators of this year's summer tourism performances increased by 235.34%, 496.20% and 717.85% respectively over the same period last year. The strong demand for travel is the main reason for the popularity of tourism performing arts projects, and many new hot spots have emerged in traditional tourism performing arts projects, and the cooperation between tourist attractions and performance institutions has been deepened.
At present, the Mid-Autumn Festival National Day holiday is getting closer and closer, and the popularity of the tourism market is rising again. On Ctrip's platform, as of September 6, the number of bookings for domestic travel products increased nearly fivefold compared with the same period last year, the week-on-week growth of air tickets, homestays and other formats exceeded 50%, and the price of scenic spot tickets doubled. According to Fliggy Travel data, the current holiday domestic travel product bookings have increased by nearly 6 times year-on-year, and the bookings for hotels, group tours, scenic spot tickets, car rentals and other domestic travel categories have far exceeded the same period in 2019.
"Multiple, multi-dimensional, continuous data shows that the tourism economy has irreversibly begun to recover." Dai Bin, president of China Tourism Research Institute, said.
Long-term tours are highly booked
The surge in consumer demand has led to an increase in booking prices. On Ctrip's platform, the unit price of domestic air tickets during the Mid-Autumn Festival National Day holiday was 1,293 yuan, an increase of 20% compared with the unit price of summer passengers. According to data from Tongcheng Travel Network, as of September 12, the average air ticket price for travel during the Mid-Autumn Festival National Day holiday increased by 13% compared with the "May Day" holiday.
The 8-day long holiday makes long-term travel bookings more popular. According to Ctrip's platform data, the proportion of air tickets and hotels booked for inter-provincial travel during the Mid-Autumn Festival National Day holiday reached 84%, an increase of 30 percentage points year-on-year, and long-term travel destinations were mainly concentrated in the northwest such as Burjin, Urumqi, Lanzhou and Dunhuang, or Sanya, Guangzhou and Xiamen in southern China. According to Fliggy data, inter-provincial travel orders accounted for more than 80% of orders during the Mid-Autumn Festival National Day holiday, and many places such as Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou and Chengdu became popular destinations for domestic travel.
Liu Yang, chief commercial officer of Tujia Homestay, analyzed that the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays are a node for concentrated travel for all ages. Long-term travel demand is released intensively, and the homestay market will usher in a new outbreak cycle. From a regional perspective, northern destinations may cool down a bit, while southern destinations are about to start making their efforts. "During the 'National Day' period, Tujia will focus on supervising homestay services and performance issues such as no room in the store, price increases, false transactions, and false reviews to ensure tourists' stay experience." Liu Yang said.
During the holidays, there is always a crowd of tourists in popular destinations, and this holiday, many people choose to go in the opposite direction, to niche destinations with lower costs and higher comfort. On the Ctrip platform, orders from Shangri-La, Jingdezhen, Anji, Nanyang, Changzhou, Foshan, Huai'an, Yanji, Jieyang, Antu and other places exceeded the 2019 National Day holiday by more than double. On the Tujia platform, the number of bookings for holiday Yanbian B&Bs increased by 25 times, and the number of bookings for B&Bs in Changzhou, Fuzhou, Luoyang and other places increased by more than 10 times.
Outbound travel is expected to reach a peak
According to statistics from the National Immigration Administration, from July 1 to August 29, the exit-entry administration agencies of public security organs across the country issued a total of 3.42 million ordinary passports, 18.585 million travel permits and endorsements to and from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, up 7.1% and 27.5% respectively from the previous month. A total of 82.413 million people were inspected by border inspection authorities nationwide, an increase of 19.88% month-on-month. The demand for entry and exit documents for Chinese citizens has been rising, the flow of inbound and outbound passengers has increased significantly, and the inbound and outbound tourism market has shown a synchronous recovery trend.
In August this year, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced the resumption of national travel agencies and online travel companies to operate outbound group tours by Chinese citizens to relevant countries and regions (the third batch), expanding the number of destinations on the three lists to 138, and the popularity of these destinations has increased. "Due to the time period required for travel planning and visa processing, the outbound tourism market did not heat up rapidly until the summer period, and we expect the outbound tourism market to usher in a small peak in passenger flow during the Mid-Autumn Festival National Day holiday this year." Cheng Chaogong, chief researcher of Tongcheng Research Institute, said.
On September 13, Thailand announced a five-month visa-free policy for Chinese tourists. Qunar travel big data shows that after the release of the policy, the search volume of Thai air tickets on the platform increased by more than 70% compared with the same time last week, and the search volume of Thai hotels increased by 1 times month-on-month. On Ctrip's platform, the search popularity of outbound air tickets during the Mid-Autumn Festival National Day holiday recovered by nearly 100% compared with the same period in 2019, and the main search destinations for outbound air tickets were Thailand, South Korea, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. On the Fliggy platform, the number of outbound travel product bookings increased by more than 20 times year-on-year, and the distance of outbound travel gradually expanded from the "4-hour flight circle" to the outside world, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia and other countries became popular countries for outbound travel, and Egypt, New Zealand, Vietnam, Turkey, Spain and other countries grew the fastest.
Notably, overseas niche destinations are also growing in popularity. On Ctrip's platform, niche and long-term travel destinations represented by New Zealand, Switzerland, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey stood out, and the popularity of hotel searches increased significantly compared with the same period in 2019. Tongcheng travel data shows that the popularity of relatively niche outbound destinations such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East has grown rapidly, and as of September 12, some popular holiday products for the Mid-Autumn Festival National Day holiday have been sold out.
Column editor-in-chief: Zhao Hanlu Text editor: Fang Ying Title picture source: Xinhua News Agency Photo editor: Di Xi
Source: Author: Economic Daily
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