Local tourism booming in China during National Day

Tourists visit the Temple of Heaven in Beijing on Sunday. During the National Day holiday, local tourism has been booming in many cities, including Beijing, Chongqing and Shanghai. On the first day of the weeklong National Day holiday, the number of day-trip travelers participating in local tours or traveling to nearby regions almost doubled compared to last year, online travel agencies said.

Bookings at hotels and bed- and- breakfasts B&B in suburban Beijing were hot commodities. The booking volume for B&B stays in the capital's Miyun district was three times higher year-on-year, said Toncheng Travel, a Suzhou, Jiangsu province-based online travel agency.

It said the trend reflects a change in habits among travelers facing the potential risk of a COVID 19 resurgence.

The top five cities with the highest demand for admission to local tourist attractions on Saturday were Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu in Sichuan province, Guangzhou in Guangdong province and Chongqing. Nearly half of the total was made up of bookings from travelers born in the 1990s and after 2000, according to Trip.com Group, China's largest online travel agency.

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There will be more people taking trips locally that will increase the growth potential of local travel resources. The break is an opportunity for business operators to showcase their abilities. Shen Jiani, a senior researcher at Trip.com's research institute, said that they compete to attract local consumers to revisit by providing high-quality services and innovative activities.

Zhou Weihong, the deputy general manager of Springtour Travel Agency, said organizing local tours has become a new business growth opportunity for the agency. Some of its tour guides who guided group tours abroad or on domestic long-haul trips have been transferred to local tours and netted stable incomes.

This year, consumers are more flexible when it comes to their travel decisions, and more people tend to book hotels within a week in advance or even on the same day of their stay, according to Tongcheng Travel.

Staying at local hotels is a new normal for taking vacations locally. High-end resorts, hotels that cater to pets and cater to pets, and esports, have been favored by consumers, said Cheng Chaogong, chief tourism research at Tongcheng.

The attention of local consumers has been drawn to Shanghai, Disney Resort and Changxing Island in the Chongming district. In East China's Fujian province, there is a year-on-year surge in hotel booking volumes in cities like Fuzhou, Xiamen and Quanzhou, which are ranked as the top among its peers nationwide, according to Tongcheng Travel.

Many people are willing to get up close to nature and view autumn scenery for long-distance trips. It said that bamboo rafts on the picturesque Lijiang River in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, or going to Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous prefecture, Yunnan province, are some of the most popular destinations nationwide.