During the National Day holiday, Fujian’s “tours to counties” are booming, and “slow-charging tourism” is becoming more and more popular.

China News Service, Fuzhou, October 5th. Title: During the National Day holiday, Fujian's "tour to the county" is booming, and "slow-charging tourism" is becoming more and more popular.

Author Ye Qiuyun

During the National Day holiday in 2026, when the scene of "people following the herd" reappears in scenic spots in major popular cities in China, a craze of "touring to the county" is quietly surging among the mountains and seas of Fujian.

In Yongtai County, Fuzhou, slow rural life has become the first choice for vacation for many tourists. Entering Qigang Village, Dayang Town, Yongtai County, the four B&Bs in the "Xinbo Yuanli" residential village are welcoming batches of tourists with their bags to check in. There is no hotel front desk or room card here. Instead, villager Lin Yong handed over a pot of local green tea and the instruction to "treat it as your own home when you come here."

The picture shows tourists experiencing rice harvesting in Qigang Village, Dayang Town, Yongtai County, Fuzhou City. Photo by Ye Qiuyun

In front of the B&B, in the open private vegetable garden, tourists can pick up farm tools to cut vegetables and water; in the paddy fields with rolling rice waves, tourists pick up sickles and lean over to cut the rice, and the plump rice ears fall with the sound; in the studio vacated by villager Lin Minqing, there are all kinds of pens, inks and paints, waiting for calligraphy and painting enthusiasts to convey their emotions with pen and ink. As Zhang Peifen, a long-term health care group tourist, said: “Experiences that can’t be found on the bill are the reasons to stay here.”

This is the first courtyard-style shared residential village in Yongtai County that was transformed from an idle new residential house. It is located at the foot of the Mingshan Room, a national key cultural relic protection unit. The summer temperature is several degrees lower than that in Fuzhou city. Since its trial operation in May this year, it has received nearly 300 batches of tourists. During the National Day holiday, tourists from Zhejiang, Fujian and other places flocked to Qigang Village to stay. B&Bs were particularly popular and it was hard to find a room.

Small population, slow pace, and low prices are the characteristics of "touring to the county", which also allows county tourism to catch up with the desire of urban workers for relaxation. In Guifeng Village, Youxi County, Sanming City, tourist Chen Wei stayed in a B&B and looked out the window. He saw ancient Ming and Qing buildings with local characteristics, red peppers, golden corns, orange pumpkins, and colorful harvest fruits that contrasted with the vicissitudes of ancient buildings. He said that walking on the stone road in the village and tasting the sun-dried autumn fruits was a great relief.

The picture shows villagers in Guifeng Village, Youxi County, Sanming City, Fujian Province, busy "basking in the autumn sun", attracting tourists to come and watch. Photo courtesy of Chen Jinhua

Fujian has many mountains and long coastline, and is rich in mountain and sea resources. In Taifan Town, Lianjiang County, Fuzhou City, there is an endless stream of tourists who come to enjoy the sea breeze and eat seafood following the hit drama "The Confrontation". Taiyan Town, facing the sea on three sides, is known as the "End of the World" in Fuzhou. When the fishing boats return to the port, the wharf is the busiest, with hairtail, pomfret, and nine-knot shrimps landing together. Tourists can feel the most authentic coastal "fireworks" in the hustle and bustle of the fishing port just like the characters in the play.

The "Tourism Market Insight Report for the First Half of 2026" released by the China Tourism Association in August shows that in the first half of 2026, county tourism has become an important growth pole of the market, with off-site consumption in counties increasing by 14.1% year-on-year. According to data from an online travel platform, bookings for county travel products increased by 42% year-on-year during National Day travel.

Zheng Xian, vice president of the Fuzhou Tourism Association who has been engaged in the tourism industry for a long time, observed that currently, tourists’ consumption concept has shifted from “check-in sightseeing” to the pursuit of emotional value and in-depth experience, and “slow-charge tourism” in county towns is becoming more and more popular. He believes that behind the "tour to the county" is another understanding of the "longing for life" that more and more tourists have. "Travel does not have to be far away. It can also happen quietly under the eaves of a certain county, next to a drying rack, or beside a pier."

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