Dual holidays, boom in family travel boosting tourism demand

This year's eight-day National Day holiday, which is one day longer than usual and overlaps with Mid-Autumn Festival, has driven greater popularity in the tourism market than previous years, according to industry insiders.

As demand for travel and family reunions overlap, there has been a notable rise in family trips, said Qunar, a Beijing-based online travel agency. This has driven rapid growth in travel volume, and the holiday's overall tourism popularity is expected to surpass that of previous years, the agency said.

Due to high demand, many passengers have been unable to book tickets for high-speed trains, so they have turned instead to flight tickets, which has further fueled an overall increase in holiday airfares, said aviation data provider VariFlight.

Nonetheless, Cai Muzi, a Qunar researcher, said that airfares "saw a drop starting on Oct 2 and reached a relatively low level on Oct 4. Traveling during the offpeak period makes it more cost-effective."

On Oct 1, National Day, the number of air passengers hit a peak, and family travelers were the main force of those embarking on trips, according to Qunar.

On the first day of the holiday period, family travelers accounted for 43 percent of all travelers — 3 percentage points higher than last year — while the number of elderly people and children traveling grew rapidly. The number of children through age 12 traveling by air saw a 31 percent year-on-year increase, while the number of air travelers over age 60 rose 33 percent year-on-year, Qunar found.

In terms of hotel check-ins on Oct 1, Beijing topped the list of the most popular domestic destinations, followed by Shanghai and Chongqing.

In particular, the number of self-driving travelers has increased significantly. On Oct 1, the number of road trip travelers more than tripled over the previous day, according to Tuniu Corp, an online travel agency based in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.

The longer holiday has also enabled more people to travel abroad. Travelers from third-tier and smaller cities have shown more enthusiasm for outbound travel, and the number of people who flew abroad on Oct 1 surged by more than 50 percent year-on-year. The most popular overseas destinations have been Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Meanwhile, the holidays have attracted more international travelers to experience Chinese culture. On Oct 1, the number of foreign passengers taking domestic flights jumped more than 40 percent year-on-year, with such travelers visiting some 70 cities in China. Foreign travelers have mainly come from South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, Qunar found.

Meanwhile, as of Sept 25, the average price of air tickets for the National Day holiday was 819 yuan ($115), up 9.1 percent year-on-year, according to Flight Master, a travel services platform in China.

Lin Zhijie, an independent aviation industry analyst, said: "After adjustments over the past few years, airlines' pricing strategies have undergone significant changes. Their forecasts of market trends have become increasingly accurate and effective, and airfares have also become more closely aligned with market demand."

zhuwenqian@chinadaily.com.cn