The New Year holiday tourism market continues to heat up.
During this New Year’s Day holiday, the popularity of many cities and scenic spots remains high. According to the 2024 New Year’s Day Tourism Consumption Forecast released by Tuniu, in the first two weeks of December, the booking volume of New Year’s Day holiday tourism products has increased by 220% year-on-year. Among them, the hot spring tour at home, the surrounding theme parks, the ice and snow tour in the north and the island tour in the south are highly sought after.
With the blessing of tourist elements such as snow-capped mountains, glaciers, hot springs, skiing, rime and ice sculptures, the heat of ice and snow travel continues to heat up. In Liaoning, the "Happy Ice and Snow Tourism Season 2023-2024, Liaoning Dazhong Ice and Snow Hot Spring Experience Season and Liaoning Gongchangling International Ski Invitational Tournament" with the theme of "Happy Ice and Snow, Happy Winter" has begun. In Heilongjiang, the 25th Harbin Ice and Snow World has been opened a few days ago. While tourists from the south keep going northward, more and more scenic spots in the south are simultaneously launching ice and snow tourism products. For example, the 24th Southland International Ice and Snow Festival with the theme of "Fireworks in Snowy Mountains in Chengdu" kicked off in Xiling Snow Mountain Scenic Area in Sichuan.
While "cold resources" continue to release "thermal effects", anti-season tourism aimed at avoiding the cold is also the choice of many people. The data shows that on the same travel platform, the popularity of domestic island tourism increased by 72% year-on-year, and the popularity of island tourism in Southeast Asia increased by three times year-on-year.
In addition, more and more consumers choose to play in the New Year’s Eve when they bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new year. Watching fireworks, chasing the aurora, listening to concerts and watching the sunrise have become the standard for pursuing a ceremonial life. Judging from the current data of various platforms, these new games have become the consumption highlights of New Year’s Day tourism in 2024. During the New Year’s holiday, there are a large number of concerts in China, and "traveling with performances" has become a major trend of tourism consumption, and "performance economy" has played an increasingly significant role in driving tourism consumption. According to Ctrip’s report, the bookings of hotels near concerts and music festivals increased in 2024, compared with the same period in 2022 and 2019.
It is estimated that this winter, the popularity of Aurora-themed tourist routes has risen rapidly, and the number of consultants has increased by nearly 200% compared with the same period in 2019. Some popular Aurora-themed products on New Year’s Day have been sold out, and the domestic Harbin-Mohe tourist routes and Aurora-themed tours in countries such as Northern Europe and Finland are the most popular among tourists.
"Tourism is a pleasant experience from the habitual environment to the unconventional environment, and it is an important way to reflect the sense of ceremony. To this end, tourist destinations should focus on differences and provide more diversified and novel tourism products and higher quality and comfort tourism services for tourists who pursue a sense of ceremony. " Song Changyao, director of beijing international studies university Tourism Management Department, said.
At the same time, the booking volume of tourist routes has increased significantly, and various localities have attracted tourists by organizing special cultural tourism activities according to local conditions, introducing ticket reduction and exemption policies, and issuing consumer vouchers. For example, some scenic spots in Gansu, Sichuan, Tibet and other places have introduced preferential policies for free tickets. Tickets for Mingsha Mountain, Crescent Spring, Yumenguan and Yadan National Geopark are free for all tourists on New Year’s Day, Spring Festival and Lantern Festival in Dunhuang, Gansu. Before the end of March, 2024, tickets for state-owned tourist attractions of 4A level and above in Aba, Ganzi, Liangshan and Panzhihua in Sichuan Province will be "buy one get one free".
Take out "real money and silver" to activate the tourism consumption potential. For example, in Changping District of Beijing, in order to attract tourists to come to Changping to soak in the spring and play with ice and snow, Ctrip jointly launched a winter cultural travel subsidy; Jilin has formulated measures to promote consumption in the new snow season from 2023 to 2024 in advance, issued 30 million yuan of ice and snow coupons to tourists inside and outside the province, and set up 10 million yuan of ice and snow transportation subsidies; Liaoning is expected to issue 150 million yuan of ice and snow coupons to attract more domestic and foreign tourists to enjoy the ice and snow in Liaoning.
Song Changyao said that during the holidays, local governments should pay attention to the dissemination of traditional culture when creating hot spots for cultural tourism consumption, at the same time, they should standardize market order, rationally guide crowded areas, restrict and supervise the honest operation of merchants, and pay attention to maintaining the image of cultural tourism.
While the popularity of domestic tourism continues to rise, the popularity of inbound and outbound tourism is also constantly "warming up". The visa facilitation policies introduced by some outbound destinations are superimposed on the New Year’s Eve, and outbound travel is expected to get off to a good start in 2024 during the New Year holiday. Flying pig data shows that up to now, the number of outbound travel bookings has increased nearly 10 times compared with last year. Among them, Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia have become popular destinations for tourists to travel abroad. Hongkong, China and Macau, China are the most popular destinations for tourists, and the number of outbound tourists accounts for 27%. Among them, the booking of in-depth travel products in one place is particularly hot.
At the same time, the development trend of inbound tourism is also improving. According to the data of "Digital Wisdom Hotel" of Ctrip Hotel, on New Year’s Day holiday in 2024, the popularity of inbound tourism accommodation on Ctrip platform increased by more than 200% compared with the same period in 2019. Song Changyao said that a considerable proportion of China’s inbound tourism is overseas Chinese returning to visit relatives. Therefore, tourism products can be developed around reunion and reunion to maximize the level of entry facilitation. At the same time, with the help of the holiday opportunity, we should dig deep into the connotation of holiday culture, and through the modern expression of traditional culture, play a good card of integration of literature and tourism to attract inbound tourists.
"We should go overseas to participate in the exhibition as soon as possible, so that overseas wholesalers and travel agents can know the rapid changes in our domestic tourism industry." Zhou Zhanfeng, deputy general manager of CYTS International Tourism Co., Ltd. said.
Dou Junjie, a national gold medal tour guide and co-founder of Beijing Riding Culture, said that at present, the brain drain of tour guides is serious, and we should pay attention to the cultivation of excellent foreign language tour guides. At the same time, remould the inbound tourism product system, integrate the excellent Chinese traditional culture into it, and tell the China cultural story to international friends.
Wei Jinjin Qin Jiaming (Source: Economic Daily)
Wei Jinjin Qin Jiaming [Editor: Ye Pan]