EconoScope | Why small towns are big winners in this May Day holiday

(ECNS) -- During this May Day holiday, county tourism in China has become a new trend.

According to online travel agency Ctrip, on the first day of the holiday, tourism orders for small towns increased by nearly 20 percent year-on-year. Meituan, a large on-demand delivery service provider in China, reported that as of May 1, bookings for five-star hotels in counties surged by 40 percent compared to the same period last year, outpacing the national average growth rate.

More travelers chose to forgo traditional popular tourist cities in favor of small towns, which they think offer a sense of poetry and an escape from the pressures of work. This reflects not only a shift in consumer preferences, but also marks the ongoing upgrade of county-level tourism.

Wu Liyun, executive vice dean of the Institute of China Culture and Tourism Industry at Beijing International Studies University, stated that tourists are becoming increasingly rational in their spending, favoring travel experiences with quality-to-price ratios. County-level tourism not only offers more attractive prices but also meets personalized needs such as folk culture, intangible cultural heritage experiences, and local cuisine, Wu added.

In recent years, more small towns have risen to fame thanks to the spread of short videos and films, and their advantage in intangible cultural heritage. They make their way onto young people's travel lists and fuel the boom in county tourism during holidays.

As infrastructure development accelerates, China has now basically formed a national transport framework, covering over 80 percent of counties and serving about 90 percent of the country's population.

County destinations are no longer remote places and long journeys, but poetic tourism accessible via modern transportation.

At the same time, mid-to-high-end hotels and chain restaurants are expanding into lower-tier cities.

Where the population flows, economic vitality follows. Tourism connects upstream and downstream sectors such as dining, lodging, transportation, shopping, and entertainment, further revitalizing a wide variety of industries.

The 2024 National County-Level Tourism Development Report shows that in 2023, the average total tourism revenue across 1,866 county-level regions in China reached 4.295 billion yuan (about $591 million), while the average number of tourist visits hit 5.0827 million, a year-on-year increase of 41.19 percent and 35.18 percent, respectively. These figures fully demonstrate the strong momentum of county-level tourism.

The rise of county tourism has brought new opportunities for cultural tourism and economic development in these areas. Yet, the real challenge lies in turning short-lived online fame into sustainable, long-term appeal. How to integrate industrial resources and innovate cultural tourism marketing strategies has become a test of each county's ingenuity.

Some local cultural and tourism departments use the county tourism boom to offer more products, hoping to turn short-term popularity into long-term growth. Only by improving service quality can counties turn brief attention into lasting development.

(By Gong Weiwei)