CCTV News (Focus Interview): October 7 is the last day of the National Day holiday. In the past week, roads and railways have been busy with traffic, and crowds of people inside and outside the scenic area have surged. Some people travel to distant places to experience a different style; some return to their hometowns and look for the long-lost fireworks in familiar streets; others choose to stay where they are and go into business districts, museums, and theaters to complete a mini vacation at home. What new changes will the cultural tourism and consumer markets show during this year’s holiday season? What measures have relevant departments in various places taken to make everyone's travel smoother, play more comfortable, and consume more securely?
This holiday, have you become one of the people traveling? Where have you checked in and experienced new ways to play? Data released by the Ministry of Transport shows that in the six days before the National Day holiday, the daily cross-regional movement of people across society exceeded 300 million people. As the last long holiday in 2026, the ample holiday time during the National Day has also changed everyone’s travel radius, making long-distance travel a popular choice.
Dai Bin, President of the China Tourism Academy: "Long-term tourism allows tourists from all over the country to move within a wider range, and to each other. Crossing the east and west, and the exchanges between the north and the south have become very prominent features. Therefore, we have seen a significant increase in the popularity of some tourist destinations in the southwest, northwest, including the northeast."
Data shows that tourists who choose long-term travel do not just flock to big cities. Inter-provincial travel and in-depth travel have increased significantly, and counties and niche destinations continue to gain popularity. For example, the "Autumn Tour", which continues to be discussed on social platforms, eventually turned into accommodation orders and long-term air tickets. Data shows that on the first day of the National Day, the popularity of long-distance routes of more than 2,000 kilometers increased by more than 40% year-on-year. The autumn colors in Qinghai, Xinjiang Altay and other places are in the "best viewing period" and are the most popular, driving the search volume of "Autumn Chasing Routes" to increase by 230% week-on-week.
During the National Day holiday, some people flew thousands of kilometers to "chasing autumn", while others visited several destinations in one holiday and started a multi-city series tour.
Long-distance travel also directly drives consumption of local services. In regions such as Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, and Xinjiang, car rental in other places has become the choice for many people to travel in depth.
During the National Day holiday, people can go further and play more immersively, which is inseparable from the continuous improvement of transportation infrastructure and the continuous opening of capillaries to various places, making "walking" more and more convenient.
Dai Bin: "Aviation, high-speed rail, and highways are reshaping the new transportation pattern of long-distance travel. If a decision is a long process, it must be low-frequency consumption. But if it is like visiting a nearby park every day, then I can go there at any time. So high-speed rail changes not only people's psychological distance, but also their psychological feelings, making travel freer and more convenient, and the density can continue to increase."
On the eve of National Day, four high-speed railways—Xiong-Shanghai High-speed Railway, Xikang High-speed Railway, Yixing High-speed Railway, and Haiyi High-speed Railway—opened for operation on the same day, significantly boosting the popularity of National Day in surrounding small towns along the high-speed railway lines. Data shows that searches for small towns along the third line and below of the high-speed rail have increased by more than 70% month-on-month. The passage of high-speed rail has given some cultural and tourism resources that were once "hidden in the boudoir" more opportunities to be "seen". While shortening the time and space distance, it also expands the tourist source radius of these small cities’ cultural tourism.
Ankang, a city located in the hinterland of the Qinba Mountains, has become a destination for many tourists during the National Day trip after the opening of the high-speed rail.
After the opening of the Xikang High-speed Railway, Ankang West Station has added 4 high-speed rail express lines and 17 buses to various counties and districts. Passengers can seamlessly get on the bus to their desired destination after getting off the high-speed rail. In order to allow "passers-by" to stay and become "overnight guests", the local government also made careful plans for the National Day holiday and planned 9 high-quality routes.
Nowadays, tourists’ needs are more immediate and fragmented. Experts pointed out that if localities want to better capture the passenger flow brought by convenient transportation, they can no longer simply integrate local cultural and tourism resources to provide services with conventional thinking. Instead, they must fully understand the needs of tourists and use demand to drive supply.
During this year’s National Day holiday, people no longer copy the same “travel guide” with different directions, but they are all looking for “poetry and distance” that suits them. Cultural and tourism departments in various places are constantly broadening their thinking. Tourism has changed the "get on the bus to sleep, get off the bus to take pictures" model, and began to focus on immersive experience and scene-based consumption. Nowadays, there are fewer people "looking at the scenery" and more people "entering the scenery".
In Tianjin, in this 90-year-old China Theater, the cultural and tourism version of the drama "Sunrise" is being performed. Audiences can not only sit in the theater and watch the play, but also enjoy flash mob performances in the theater's cloisters, living rooms and other spaces, and interact with the actors up close. The performances here break the traditional viewing format and extend the drama to multiple spaces in the theater, allowing the audience to participate and experience the charm of the drama immersively.
In Wuhan, the entire city has been transformed into a venue for new music talents, launching five major theme sections: Yangtze River Live Concert, Subway National Style Pop-up Show, Scenic Area Zhiyin River City Tour, Theater Golden Autumn Music Season, and Street Fashion Music Corner. There is no need for a traditional stage and no tickets. From the river beach to the subway, from the theater to the street corner, there are music shows everywhere.
During the National Day holiday, hundreds of millions of people traveled, which not only tested a country's comprehensive carrying capacity, but also tested the response capabilities of local governments. During the holidays, the popularity of new energy vehicle travel continues to rise, and the demand for charging also increases. Especially on days when travel is concentrated, queuing up for charging at highway service areas has become a worry for some car owners. In order to solve the problem of charging queues during holidays, many places have taken corresponding measures.
Shenhai Expressway is the main north-south transportation artery in northern Jiangsu, with a large flow of transit traffic. Every holiday, a large number of new energy vehicles drive into the service area, and it is often difficult to find one. In order to make up for the shortcomings of high-speed charging, the electric power department of Yancheng, Jiangsu Province expanded the capacity of charging stations. Before the National Day, two 2,000 kVA special transformers and four 640-kilowatt group charging and group control charging equipment were added to increase the total number of charging guns and solve the problem of charging queues.
In Cangzhou, Hebei Province, the local State Grid Power Supply Company upgraded and optimized 18 charging stations with intensive traffic in the territory before the holiday. Each station is equipped with 640 kilowatt high-power overcharging equipment, which intelligently allocates power according to vehicle status, effectively compressing the charging time and improving parking space charging efficiency.
Li Jian, deputy director of the Marketing Center of State Grid Cangzhou Power Supply Company: "We use intelligent inspection robot dogs to carry out special inspections of high-speed charging facilities to accurately identify hidden dangers in the operation of charging station equipment. We rely on the Internet of Vehicles platform to monitor the charging load and operating status, and deal with problems at any time when problems are found, ensuring that green travel is more convenient and more secure for the public."
In addition to providing good services, during this year's National Day holiday, a series of policies to benefit the people, such as the trade-in of consumer goods for new ones and consumer loan interest discounts, have been accelerated. With the addition of local consumption subsidies, policy dividends have been fully released, and the holiday market's consumption vitality has continued to explode.
Xinglou Town in Pizhou, Jiangsu Province is located at the junction of Shandong and Shandong, and borders Lanling County, Taierzhuang District and Yicheng District in Shandong Province. During the holidays, Xinglou Town teamed up with surrounding towns and villages to communicate with car companies and move the auto show to Daji. Policy subsidies are combined with corporate profits. Some models can save more than 10,000 yuan, and more than a dozen groups of customers were registered in the morning.
The countryside is bustling during the holidays, and the city's business districts are full of new ideas. Shopping malls that break away from the traditional model of simply selling goods are bringing more surprises to consumers. In a 420,000-square-meter commercial space in Guangzhou, more than 10 cultural and tourism projects such as the Tropical Rainforest Botanical Garden, Polar Ocean World, and Natural Science Museum are open to welcome guests. Citizens and tourists can experience jungle exploration and popular science research in one stop. The mall has become a popular vacation destination in the city.
Jilin Changchun has moved mountainous landscapes into shopping malls to create a unique shopping and leisure experience. Climbing up the stairs along the winding trail, you will find the street food district full of fireworks; cultural and creative workshops and trendy shops are scattered at random, and there is a new scene at every corner. During the National Day holiday, more than 60,000 people came to experience it every day.
The increasingly abundant supply of services and goods is stimulating new consumption potential. Commercial big data from the Ministry of Commerce shows that in the three days before the National Day holiday, the passenger flow of 78 key pedestrian streets and business districts monitored across the country increased by 3.4% year-on-year, and the turnover increased by 5.3%. Sales of consumer goods are also booming. The trade-in of old consumer goods across the country drove sales of 19.63 billion yuan, benefiting 3.483 million people. Among them, 46,000 cars were traded in for new ones, driving new car sales of 7.45 billion yuan; 1.511 million home appliances were traded in, and 1.709 million digital and smart products were purchased, driving a total sales of 11.4 billion yuan.
The long holiday has come to an end, but the heat continues unabated. From faraway autumn tours to urban mini-vacations, from sightseeing check-ins to immersive experiences, this large-scale cross-regional movement of people not only reflects people's yearning for a better life, but also tests the quality of infrastructure, public services and cultural tourism supply. Unlocking the potential of holiday consumption is not just about the excitement of the holidays. With the implementation of plans and supporting policies related to expanding consumption, the "traffic dividend" released during the festival will gradually be transformed into a normalized and sustainable "increase in consumption."
