The photo shows a girl and her mother enjoying the spring holiday in Jiangsu Agricultural Expo Park in Jurong, east China's Jiangsu Province. (Xinhua/Zhong Xueman)
BEIJING, April 10 (Xinhua Silk Road) -- Overlooking seas of golden flowers from a hot air balloon, experiencing a thousand-year-old cultural heritage at museums, and enjoying family time at theme parks... With the start of spring breaks for primary and secondary schools in many regions across China, the tourism market has witnessed a new wave of enthusiasm.
This year's spring breaks were linked to the three-day Qingming Festival holiday, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day, which is a traditional Chinese festival for people to pay tribute to the dead and worship their ancestors. The extended holiday has activated a strong demand for travel, said industry experts. Nearby trips, short trips, and study tours have all posted significant growth, further unleashing the potential of consumption vitality.
-- Extended holidays ignite consumption spree
In Beijing's Universal Studios, tourists were lining up at the Jurassic Flyers ride. "My child has a spring break from April 1 to 3, and with the Qingming Festival holiday, there are six days so my family decide to come to Beijing", said a tourist from Nanjing in east China's Jiangsu Province.
This year, several provinces including Jiangsu, east China's Anhui Province and Sichuan Province in southwest China arranged spring breaks for primary and middle school students in early April, linked to the three-day Qingming Festival holiday to create an extended break of nearly a week.
In Huaihua, central China's Hunan Province, many parents took children on hot air balloon rides to see the view of flower sea from the sky. The staff at the scenic area confirmed that the unique experience of "flying over the flower sea" had attracted many families.
Data from Meituan Travel show that many places throughout the country witnessed a travel peak from April 1 to 6, with family-oriented accommodations being especially popular.
Rail transport was also busy. A representative from Chengdu Railway Station said that on the first day of the spring break, train tickets departing from Chengdu to popular cities were almost sold out.
Hong Yong, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce, said that the introduction of spring breaks in many places has more than just extended the holiday period. It has fundamentally reshaped the time distribution of people's travel and consumption habits.
-- Learning-related tourism packages popular in spring holiday
During the spring holiday, in-depth experiential consumption centered on "research" and aimed at "learning" is favored.
According to Meituan Travel, among the cities having announced the spring holiday arrangement, the National Museum of China, Nanjing S&T Museum, Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum and the Palace Museum were among the top ten hot spots for booking for their citizens.
"During this spring break, we have designed multiple research and learning tour routes focusing on three themes, namely red heritage, science and technology innovation, and rural scenery," said Zhai Rongsheng, deputy director of the Bureau of Culture and Tourism of Hefei. These routes enabled students to better understand China's revolutionary history, take a closer look at the cutting-edge technology and enjoy the beautiful natural scenery in spring, he added.
Xu Huayu, head of Anhui Global Culture Tourism Group, said that the spring holiday coincided with the company's 3rd research and learning camp on exploring the "artificial sun". With good reputation among parents, the camp had become increasingly popular and attracted many parents to consult online.
-- Spring holiday leads to collaborative effect among multiple industries
This year's spring break has not only heated up domestic tourism market but also spilled over the consumption momentum to other fields such as dining and retail, with multiple industries working together to continuously release consumption vitality.
Anhui's Chizhou saw significantly higher influx of visitors during the spring break, which boosted consumption in local dining, homestays and cultural and innovative products.
"From April 1 to 5, nearly all of the nearby homestays with special characteristics were fully booked, mostly by families, and often for several days," said Du Yu, head of the Xinghua Village Cultural Tourism Area in Chizhou. This wave of tourism has also boosted consumption in local farm restaurants and specialty snacks, with long queues seen in front of some restaurants and a noticeable increase in sales of local products, said Du.
The rising demand for traveling has also triggered purchase of outdoor equipment. Data from the e-commerce platform Zhi-Tech Group show that the gross merchandise volume (GMV) of spring clothes in March surged nearly 20 percent. Outdoor clothes and accessories also posted remarkable growth in the month.
The spring holiday has not only boosted traveling, but more importantly, triggered formation of a consumption chain that takes travel as the core and spreads to multiple industries, said Hong Yong. The phenomenon has actually presented a new path of consumption growth, shifting from single-product consumption to a "scenario-driven + service-added" comprehensive consumption approach, he noted.
Zhu Keli, founder of China Institute of New Economy, stated that spring break consumption is characterized by the fusion of different scenarios and strong supply-demand dynamics, driving collaborative growth across multiple industries. This reflects an upgrading in tourism consumption structures from traditional sightseeing to experiences and quality consumption. (Edited by Li Xueqing with Xinhua Silk Road, lixueqing@xinhua.org)
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