China sees surge in Dragon Boat tourism as foreign interest in festival grows
Chinese travel platforms have logged a big jump in bookings by inbound tourists over the holiday, as global interest in Chinese festivals rises
China is expected to record a major uptick in inbound tourism over the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, with travel platforms reporting huge jumps in bookings by overseas users seeking out traditional Chinese cultural experiences.
Chinese travel platform Fliggy has logged a more than 600 per cent year-on-year increase in inbound bookings for the three-day holiday, which begins on Friday. Fliggy is owned by Alibaba Group Holding, which also owns the South China Morning Post.
More than a dozen Chinese provinces have rolled out festival-themed events for the holiday combining cultural, sports and retail experiences, as local governments seek to turn traditional customs into drivers of consumer spending, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
According to Fliggy, bookings for cross-province flight-and-hotel packages during the holiday rose over 90 per cent month on month, with travellers increasingly searching for destinations hosting major dragon boat races.
Searches for hotels near major race venues in Guangzhou and Foshan in China’s southern Guangdong province, which host the country’s best-known dragon boat races each year, rose about 210 per cent from the previous week ahead of the holiday, CCTV reported.