Special Report: "May Day" travel season, cultural tourism and leisure time

The 2019 May Day holiday has passed. The total number of domestic tourists received nationwide was 195 million, an increase of 13.7% on a comparable basis; tourism revenue reached 117.67 billion yuan, an increase of 16.1% on a comparable basis. The extended May Day holiday has a significant driving effect on the cultural and tourism market, and the people's consumption has been further released. The overall market prosperity has exceeded the pre-holiday forecast. Please see the special report of the China Tourism Academy and the Big Data Joint Laboratory of China Telecom, UnionPay Business, Ctrip.com, Mafengwo Travel Network, Lvmama Travel Network, and Chuangtu Technology.

1. Across the country, the situation of "hot spots getting hotter and warm spots not getting colder" is emerging

According to the signaling big data calculation by the China Tourism Academy and China Telecom Joint Laboratory, unlike the hotter tourism market in the south during the Spring Festival holiday, tourism in various parts of the country was relatively balanced during the "May Day" holiday. The provinces with more tourists include Guangdong, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Hebei, Shandong, Hunan, Henan, Guangxi, Shaanxi, Zhejiang, etc. From the perspective of the source of tourists, the provinces with the most tourists are Guangdong, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Guangxi, Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Hunan, Shaanxi, Chongqing, etc.

The "May 1st" passenger flow trajectory shows that most tourists flowed from the east and central regions to the central and western regions. Henan, Hebei, Jiangsu, Yunnan and other places had a significant net inflow of tourists, while Guangxi, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong and Inner Mongolia had a large-scale net outflow of tourists (see Table 1). From the perspective of major tourist source cities, tourists from cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Wuhan, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Xi'an were enthusiastic about traveling.

2. Domestic and outbound tourism continue to be hot

According to Ctrip's group tour and free travel data, the most popular domestic tourist cities are Beijing, Xiamen, Chongqing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Kunming, Guangzhou and Guiyang. Sanya, Guilin, Zhangjiajie, Lijiang, Huangshan, Wuxi, Suzhou, Zhoushan, Qinhuangdao and Beihai have become popular holiday destinations. Popular overseas tourist destinations include Thailand, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Taipei, Malaysia, Indonesia, the United States and Russia.

3. Rich tourism theme content

Judging from the travel situation of Lvmama Travel Network, there are many forms of travel, such as theme park tours, parent-child tours, rural tours, and night tours. For example, in parent-child tours, various museums, cultural relics, and intangible cultural heritage contents are more favored. Traveling with books and learning through travel are popular. The number of parent-child families and post-90s in this type of scenic spot has increased by about 33% year-on-year. During the "May Day" period this year, rural tourism is also relatively popular. The number of bookings for Lvmama related products increased by nearly 30%. Popular places such as Jiashan Dayun around Shanghai and Hangzhou, as the main spiritual agricultural base in northern Zhejiang and the hometown of fresh cut flowers in China, attracted a large number of parent-child family tourists from Shanghai and Hangzhou.

Compared with previous years, night tours are also a highlight this year. Data from the China Tourism Academy and UnionPay Business Joint Laboratory show that night tourism consumption is strong, with those born in the 1980s as the main force. The participation of tourists in night tourism has gradually increased, and consumption has gradually become more prosperous. During the May Day holiday in 2019, the amount of tourists' nighttime consumption accounted for 29.92% of the entire day. Night tourism has become an important channel for tourists to perceive local culture and experience local lifestyles. From the perspective of population structure, tourists born in the 1980s are the most active in nighttime consumption, and the amount and number of consumption account for more than 40% of all tourists.

4. The integration of culture and tourism is gradually improving

Holiday adjustments were made in response to people's livelihood concerns, and the cultural and tourism markets exceeded expectations. During the "May Day" holiday in 2019, according to the "Survey on Travel Willingness of Chinese Urban and Rural Residents" conducted by the China Tourism Academy (Data Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism) in 60 sample cities across the country, during the "May Day" holiday in 2019, China Residents’ willingness to travel is 40.53%, and the proportion of travel is relatively high. This extended version of the "May Day" mini-holiday responds to the people's needs for public holidays. In particular, the extra day of holiday will have an incremental boost to the cultural and tourism markets in the first three days, especially the third day which used to be the return day. The holiday has a significant driving effect, boosting consumption in culture, leisure, catering, rural areas, etc. During the "May Day" period, the proportion of tourists visiting museums, art galleries, libraries, science and technology museums and historical and cultural blocks reached 44.5%, 30.4%, 32.4%, 36.4% and 30.0% respectively. The theme parks, cultural landscapes and museums of the entire network Online ticket purchases for scenic spots increased by 28.1%, 25.2% and 18.1% year-on-year respectively.

The "cultural tourism consumption" market is active, and per capita consumption has steadily increased. According to Ctrip's group tour and free travel data, the cities with the highest domestic tourism consumption power during the May Day holiday this year are Beijing, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Fuzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Qingdao, Taiyuan, Ningbo and Nanjing. The average per capita expenditure on a single domestic tour during the May Day holiday in these cities exceeded 2,600 yuan, with Beijing exceeding 3,000 yuan. The cities with the highest outbound tourism consumption power are Beijing, Dalian, Taiyuan, Xi'an, Shanghai, Chengdu, Chongqing, Kunming, Zhengzhou and Nanjing. The average per capita expenditure on outbound tourism in Beijing exceeded 7,000 yuan, followed by Dalian, Taiyuan, Xi'an and Shanghai, with average per capita expenditure also exceeding 6,000 yuan.

According to data from UnionPay Business, the number of tourists' offline consumption increased by 15.8% and the amount increased by 18.0% on a comparable basis. Among them, Shanghai residents had the highest amount of domestic tourism consumption, accounting for 6.56% of the total domestic tourism consumption of tourists nationwide, with Beijing, Shenzhen, Nanjing and Guangzhou ranking second to fifth. According to the survey data of the China Tourism Research Institute, during the "May 1st" period, the average per capita expenditure of tourists on culture and tourism was between 501 and 1,000 yuan, accounting for 38.0%; the second largest expenditure was 301 to 500 yuan, accounting for 30.2%, and the proportion of expenditure exceeding 1,000 yuan was 20.5%. In terms of stay time, tourists stayed for an average of 2.25 days during the "May 1st" period.

The seamless connection between the May Day holiday and the May Fourth Youth Day, young people took the lead in practicing "promoting tourism with culture and promoting culture with tourism". A joint research team of the China Tourism Academy and Shenzhen University Intelligence found that online ticket purchases for cultural landscapes during the May Day holiday in 2019 increased by 57.3% year-on-year. In terms of age groups, young people and the elderly prefer cultural landscapes. The proportion of online ticket purchases for those born in the 1990s and 2000s during the May Day holiday was 34.1% and 30.7% respectively, and the proportion of online ticket purchases for cultural landscapes for those born in the 1960s and 1970s was 35.1% and 33.7% respectively. Tourists under the age of 25 accounted for 25.7%, and 25% of tourists had visited red tourist attractions. Many young people born in the 1990s went to red tourist cities such as Yan'an, Jinggangshan, Xibaipo, Longyan, Shanghai, Jiaxing, and Nanjing to recall the red historical footprints and feel the past years.

Source: China Tourism Academy (Data Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism)

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