This year's Dragon Boat Festival holiday spans three days. Given the short holiday duration and ongoing travel enthusiasm, residents are increasingly choosing "backyard tours" within urban clusters, which is characterized by "destination swapping."
In the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, visitors favor Qinhuangdao's Changli County. Tourists from the Yangtze River Delta are enthusiastic about Anji County in Huzhou, Shengsi County in Zhoushan, and Tonglu County in Hangzhou. In the Greater Bay Area, travelers head to Shunde in Foshan and Nan'ao in Shantou for culinary delights. These locations have all ranked among the top ten most popular county destinations on Tujia's 2024 Dragon Boat Festival booking list.
According to CTrip's "2024 Dragon Boat Festival Travel Report," local and nearby travel accounts for nearly 70% of holiday travel orders, with short trips within a "2-hour high-speed rail radius" leading the trend. Tuniu's "2024 Dragon Boat Festival Travel Consumption Review" indicates a significant demand for local and nearby travel, with self-driving, high-speed rail trips, and independent travel being the main modes of transportation.
Fliggy's "2024 Dragon Boat Festival Travel Bulletin" shows a rapid rise in bookings for emerging destinations such as Jingdezhen, the "City of Creativity," Deyang near Chengdu, Bortala, and Karamay along the northern Xinjiang travel route, Chenzhou with its "hidden beauty," and Shangrao, a city featured in National Geographic.
"Examining these 'dark horse' destinations, we can identify three main factors for their rapid growth: convenient transportation links with core tourist source regions, the beautiful early summer scenery, and unique local cultures," said a representative from Fliggy. "For instance, Deyang is just about an hour's drive from Chengdu, while Chenzhou in Hunan has become a popular destination within the 2-hour high-speed rail radius of Guangzhou and Shenzhen. These destinations are quickly gaining fans due to their short travel distances, fewer crowds, and affordable prices."
According to Tuniu's data, in the week leading up to the Dragon Boat Festival, there was a significant increase in the popularity of local and nearby travel, with one or two-day trips being the most favored. Among many domestic destinations, cities within the 1-2 hour transportation circles of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Chengdu-Chongqing urban clusters received particularly strong demands.
"A variety of folk and leisure activities were launched across multiple regions during this Dragon Boat Festival holiday, making cultural experiences, traditional Chinese styles, and 'new Chinese-style travel' the new hotspots driving the tourism market. Nearby short-distance 'backyard tourism' has become appealing again," said a representative from CTrip. The most popular 1-2 hour high-speed rail routes are mainly concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, and Chengdu-Chongqing areas, including entry-level routes like Shenzhen-Guangzhou, Shanghai-Hangzhou, Beijing-Tianjin, Shanghai-Suzhou, and Shanghai-Nanjing.
In addition to cultural and folk tourism, more everyday "new daily life" tourism is becoming popular, making "backyard" travel more routine and leisurely.
"The era of a whirlwind, 'checklist' tourism is over. Today's travelers seek richer emotional experiences and higher emotional value from their trips. They want to clear their minds and feel revitalized through travel," said a representative from the CTrip Research Institute.
Source | Yangcheng Evening News
