SHANGHAI, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- China saw a robust recovery in its tourism sector during the seven-day Spring Festival holiday, as both urban and rural residents found new destinations for their travels.
Approximately 251 million domestic trips were made during the holiday that ran from Jan. 31 to Feb. 6, generating tourism revenue of 289.2 billion yuan (about 45.4 billion U.S. dollars), according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The two figures respectively recovered to 73.9 percent and 56.3 percent of the levels seen in the same holiday of 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
"The tourism market performed better than expected," said Dai Bin, head of the China Tourism Academy.
China's domestic tourism market continued to rebound during the holiday, with people seeking higher-quality tourism and leisure activities and more consumers in lower-tier cities and rural areas entering the market, according to Dai.
Tourists from rural areas accounted for 38.1 percent of all domestic tourists during the holiday, a new record, official data shows.
The demand for tourism from rural residents and the elderly is becoming a new driving force for the innovative development of the country's tourism industry, Dai said.
More people chose to experience new scenery and tourism products during the Spring Festival holiday. New vacation options, including ice and snow tourism, short-distance travel and cultural tourism, not only brought people more fun but also helped heat up the tourism market.
ICE AND SNOW TOURISM
The Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, which opened during the Spring Festival holiday, have fueled the growth of the ice and snow industry.
According to the online platform Tongcheng Travel, the order volume for snow and ice tourism destinations during the Lunar New Year holiday jumped 68 percent from a year ago.
According to Trip.com Group, the order volume for skiing events grew 33 percent year on year over the first three days of the holiday, and cities with abundant ice and snow sports activities in the south, such as Shanghai and Guangzhou, have also joined the list of popular destinations for ice and snow travel.
SHORT-DISTANCE TRAVEL
Short-distance travel was a popular choice during the Spring Festival holiday.
Fang Zeqian from Trip.com Group said that over 80 percent of tourists chose to travel locally. On the Trip.com Group platform, bookings for local tourist attractions and hotels respectively accounted for approximately 82 percent and 60 percent of all orders.
Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou were among the most popular tourist destinations and also major sources of tourists over the holiday, according to Tongcheng Travel.
There was surging demand for hotels providing specialized entertainment such as esports, with orders for esports rooms during the holiday increasing over 80 percent, Trip.com Group said.
CULTURAL TOURISM
According to the China Tourism Academy, 91.4 percent of all tourists experienced cultural tourism during the holiday, and 81.8 percent took part in more than two cultural activities. Most tourists chose to visit museums and art galleries.
Many cities across China held cultural activities to attract tourists, and the integration of culture and tourism was well received.
Shanghai received nearly 11 million visitors and raked in over 17.7 billion yuan during this year's Spring Festival holiday, with approximately 500 cultural and tourism activities themed around intangible cultural heritage. ■
