China gears up for Qingming travel boom

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Qingming falls on the 15thth day after the spring equinox and is traditionally a time when Chinese families visit the graves of their ancestors and make ritual offerings. However, in recent decades, Qingming is increasingly treated as a holiday to simply enjoy the beautiful spring weather and time for picnicking, flying kites, and eating seasonal snacks. Since the COVID, many are still observing the holiday by worshiping the ancestors from a distance.

In line with this cultural change and propelled by the continued gradual recovery of post-pandemic travel this year, domestic travel has become a popular option. According to Ctrip’s Qingming Travel Forecast 2024hotel searches are up 67% from last year and air travel searches are up 80% year over year.. Car rental bookings are up 240% year-on-year, suggesting a slight comeback for the now-waning fad of “solo driving holidays” (自驾游).

While the most popular domestic travel destinations remain New First Tier and First Tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Chengdu, some “dark horses” have also entered the race, including the famous porcelain city of Jingdezhen (Jiangxi province) and Kaifeng (Henan province), one of the Eight Ancient Capitals of China.

The rising star this season is Tianshui, a prefecture-level city in Western China’s Gansu province with a population of about 3 million. The city is enjoying a viral moment on social media this month for its famous Malatang, a street food edition of spicy Sichuanese. The provincial government of Gansu as well released a rap track on China’s microblogging center Weibo to capture the attention of Post-00s consumers, who account for almost half of the tourists heading here Qingming. Western China in general is attracting more interest from domestic tourists this year. About half of recent tour guide bookings are for Western China, up 60% from last year.

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