Chinese touring passion rises for coming holidays

The enquiries for and purchasing of touring products for the approaching Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays are hot on multiple online touring agencies in China, China Tourism News reported on Thursday.

Last week, the number of international air tickets booked for the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays from Sept 29 to Oct 6 increased by more than 35 percent over the same period in previous month, and the number of domestic ones rose over 40 percent from last month, according to Tongcheng Travel, a travel agency based in Suzhou, Jiangsu province.

Tongcheng Travel predicts the summer travel heat will continue during the 8-day holidays with some hot destinations ushering in more tourists than that over the same period before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Data from online travel platform Ctrip shows that, in the past week, the number of orders for outbound group tour products booked through Ctrip during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays increased by nearly 3.5 times over the same period last month, and the number of private group orders increased by more than three times. Tongcheng Travel data shows that the number of inquiries about the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday routes has doubled, among which the number of outbound travel inquiries has increased by more than four times.

In terms of search volume of Ctrip's outbound group tour, in the past week, Japan exceeded Thailand and Singapore in Southeast Asia, ranking first, and the search for products of Turkey and Australia touring rose by about 50 percent.

The top 10 most-searched destinations for traveling in the long holidays were Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, the United States, France, Italy, Malaysia and New Zealand, according to data from Airbnb. Among them, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and New Zealand were searched more frequently than that in summer and are expected to become popular destinations for outbound tourism during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays.

Cheng Chaogong, chief researcher from the research institute of Tongcheng Travel, believes that the recovery of outbound tourism is expected to usher in a milestone during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day. Among them, destinations such as Japan and South Korea will have a strong performance, and distant travel in Europe and the United States will also have a good performance, and drive the demand for air tickets and accommodation in relevant destinations. Driven by strong demand, the average price of international air tickets will also rise sharply during the holiday season.