Due to the impact of COVID-19, the way Chinese consumers travel is changing.
The Mid-Autumn Festival (Chinese: 中秋节), also known as the Moon Festival or Mooncake Festival, is a traditional festival celebrated in Chinese culture.
Since ancient times, there have been folk customs such as appreciating the moon, eating moon cakes, watching lanterns, appreciating osmanthus flowers and drinking osmanthus wine. The Mid Autumn Festival holiday in 2022 is from September 10 to September 12. After the holiday, many Chinese travel platforms, such as Ctrip (Chinese: 携程), Qunar (Chinese:去哪儿) and Fliggy (Chinese:飞猪), successively released travel data for the Mid Autumn Festival holiday.
Due to the need for epidemic prevention and control, governments across China encouraged consumers to celebrate the holiday locally, so travel was affected during the holiday.
During the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, tourists mainly traveled by car for 2-3 days, and the travelers primarily consisted of local and neighboring customers. The amusement projects were mostly suburban hiking, water recreation and RV camping.
Regarding hotel booking, the order volume of local hotels on the flying pig platform increased by 52% month on month. Qunar's data also showed that the proportion of high-star hotel bookings increased significantly during the holiday, with a year-on-year increase of more than 20%.
In addition, B&B have become the first choice for consumers during this year's Mid-Autumn Festival holiday. Ctrip's statistics show that the popularity of B&B search peaked one week before the festival. Hu Yang, senior vice president of Tujia B&B(Chinese:途家民宿), believes that rural tourism has entered a new stage with rural B & B as the core. And consumers' demand for rural tourism has changed from the past sightseeing type to the holiday experience type.
In terms of playing methods, camping, cycling, frisbee and other outdoor activities are still very popular. Local tourism has become the mainstream of the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, and differentiated experience and service ability are the core elements to attract consumers. Fliggy's orders for camping during the Mid-Autumn Festival increased more than four times monthly, and Ctrip's camping products also increased by 53%.