Don’t chase tourist attractions or eat at Internet celebrity restaurants that wait for two hours, and watch the intangible cultural heritage blacksmith performance in a quaint town... During this year’s National Day holiday, Ms. Fu, a tourist, avoided popular attractions and drove to Jincheng, Shanxi Province with her lover. “There are no crowds at popular attractions, so the travel experience is better.”
Data from multiple travel platforms show that “small town tours” and “county tours” are popular during this year’s National Day holiday. The topic “the top 10 most popular National Day scenic spots are all occupied by small towns” has also appeared on Weibo’s hot searches. Visiting ancient times, hiking outdoors, and traveling slowly in counties... Many people choose to bid farewell to popular scenic spots and unlock more ways to travel during the long vacation.
Experts interviewed believe that this reflects the renewal of mass tourism concepts and the upgrading of the tourism market, but the tidal contradiction of "crowding in peak seasons and idle in off-seasons" in the cultural tourism market still exists. How to unleash the potential of in-depth travel consumption by optimizing the vacation system and allowing the public to have more travel time choices has become a question left by the holiday economy.
"Reverse travel" sparks fire in small towns and counties
This National Day holiday has become a choice for many people, breaking away from the "check-in" travel to popular attractions.
Some people choose to "visit ancient times" and go to historical sites, pay homage to historical mausoleums, and explore ancient villages. Tongcheng Travel data shows that during this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday, bookings for county-level in-depth tourism products increased by 42% year-on-year. Counties with ancient architecture such as Pingyao in Shanxi, Jianshui in Yunnan, and Shaxi in Yunnan have become popular destinations. On the Fliggy platform, destination entertainment orders including ancient architecture research, intangible cultural heritage handicrafts, and live performances have also maintained rapid growth.
Go to the ancient city of Dali in Yunnan to experience tie-dying intangible cultural heritage craftsmanship, and learn to surf and paddle board in Wanning, Hainan... "Hobby class tourism" is also widely sought after by young people. "I followed the teacher in binding and dip-dying beside the rice fields. The blue and white patterns on the cloth are all my own 'exclusive memories' made by myself." A netizen who experienced Bai tie-dying in Dali, Yunnan commented.
"There are no tourist attractions to check in. I just want to eat local specialties, feel the fireworks and the slow pace of life." This holiday, tourist Gan Fan chose Xuzhou, Jiangsu as his travel destination. He tasted local specialties such as garlic fried fish and meat sauce rice noodles. "After five days of travel, including travel and accommodation, the total cost was no more than 3,000 yuan. It was cheaper than many popular attractions and the experience was better."
When tourists are no longer satisfied with man-made landscapes, a number of "native villages" have also become popular during this holiday season: Luci Village in Tonglu, Zhejiang, on the Fuchun River, with a stream passing through the village; Dongbi Village, Xiapu, Fujian, with its beautiful tidal flat sunset, and the golden-red sea complement the life scenes of fishermen returning by boat...More and more people are willing to experience and feel in places that retain the local natural and cultural features.
Cultural tourism consumption seeks diverse and personalized experiences
"Since the implementation of the long vacation system, my country's tourism market has experienced a profound change. Tourists initially gathered in well-known scenic spots, and gradually moved to small county towns and intangible cultural heritage neighborhoods, showing the characteristics of decentralized flow." Hong Tao, director of the Sustainable Business and Innovation Working Committee of the China Association for Trade in Services and a professor at the School of Economics of Beijing Technology and Business University, said that long vacation cultural tourism is gradually moving towards diversified, personalized and in-depth experiences, reflecting the general trend of iterative upgrading of domestic cultural tourism consumption.
What drives tourists to shift from "gathering in and checking in" at top scenic spots to seeking niche destinations?
Popular scenic spots during holidays are saturated with people and rising consumption, prompting tourists to take the initiative to "avoid peak times". "I chose a popular scenic spot during last year's long vacation. The hotel price was more than twice as high as usual. The scenic spot was also crowded and the experience was very poor." Gan Fan told reporters that this year he didn't want to "spend money to see people" anymore, so he chose a more niche leisure destination.
The popularity of self-driving travel and the continuous improvement of transportation and tourism infrastructure have also made counties, mountains and wilderness that were inaccessible in the past become within reach. "With the upgrading of consumption, the popularization of cars and riding tools, and the improvement of tourism consumption infrastructure, personalized demand for consumption continues to grow. Among cross-regional mobility groups in society, more and more people are adopting self-driving and RV travel modes, which has also led to more personalized tourism activities such as hiking and cycling," Hong Tao said.
Deeper changes come from the reshaping of tourists’ mentality. “Today, the core demands of young tourists have shifted from ‘visiting here’ to seeking a sense of relaxation, healing and immersion in local culture.” Yin Jie, a professor at the School of Tourism at Huaqiao University, analyzed that people are more willing to pay for unique experiences and sincere emotions than to check out landmarks. Their consumption outlook is more rational and pragmatic, and they no longer blindly chase the traffic of Internet celebrities.
Improve the vacation system so that travel is no longer a "swarm of swarms"
"The change in tourists' preference for long vacation travel reflects the demand side's pursuit of time autonomy and quality of experience." Yin Jie said that there is still an unavoidable "tide phenomenon" in current cultural tourism consumption: tourists travel in "swarms" during the peak season of holidays, and scenic spots and hotel resources are crowded, and the experience is greatly reduced; in the off-season, a large number of supporting facilities are idle again.
To unleash the consumption potential of in-depth and long-term travel, we need to build a more complete and flexible vacation system so that travel does not have to be concentrated in a few time periods.
Useful exploration has already been carried out in some areas. Last autumn, Zhejiang Province took the lead nationwide in fully implementing the spring and autumn vacation system for primary and secondary schools, covering more than 6 million students in the province. Xinjiang, Jilin and other places also launched snow vacation policies for primary and secondary school students, which significantly boosted the popularity of local ice and snow tourism.
However, in reality, students have staggered vacations, but parents’ vacations are difficult to synchronize. "We should coordinate the 'companionship leave' of employees and the 'growth leave' of students, strengthen the rigid constraints of the paid leave system, and promote the matching of employee holidays with students' spring and autumn holidays. For families who cannot take vacations, relevant departments can also cooperate with museums and communities to launch public welfare study and study hosting, so that off-peak holidays can truly bring value, and activate consumption such as study vacations and parent-child leisure." Yin Jie suggested.
Yin Jie believes that a “personalized” holiday model can be explored. "For example, short-distance vacation models such as 'Friday half-day + weekend + annual leave' are particularly suitable for the current consumption trend of 'county tours' and 'micro-vacations', allowing tourists to use short vacations to leisurely travel to surrounding niche destinations, instead of only doing 'catch-up' sightseeing during long holidays," Yin Jie said.
Hong Tao suggested that we can promote the combination of national unified leave and local independent leave, take into account legal holidays and national characteristics holidays, explore more leave models, implement paid leave, alleviate the congestion problem of "herd consumption" and "blowout consumption" during the Golden Week, and better meet the people's needs for a better life.
