Driven by the trend of "extending holidays for travel" during the extended Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays, travel bookings for this year's Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays have accelerated, especially the domestic long-distance travel market, which has taken the lead in igniting the enthusiasm for travel during the "Golden Week" holiday.

While long-distance domestic travel is gaining popularity, booking data for a number of county-level destinations is rapidly increasing. Tourists are no longer flocking to well-known tourist attractions, gradually moving away from "check-in style sightseeing" and instead heading to towns and cities of all sizes, seeking a relaxed and immersive travel experience.

The continued popularity of county-level tourism is an inevitable result of multi-faceted support. This will drive the cultural and tourism industry away from extensive development and towards a refined transformation and upgrading path centered on quality service, immersive experiences, and local intrinsic value.

From the consumer perspective, changes in tourists' consumption concepts are forcing the industry to accelerate its transformation. The previous development model that relied on ticket revenue and traffic-driven economy is no longer sustainable. Looking at the current dynamics of listed cultural tourism companies, some leading companies have already moved beyond the single track of traditional scenic spot operation, and are actively expanding into county-level markets, developing immersive cultural tourism, and cultivating local characteristic resources to seize the opportunity of county-level tourism.

However, from the perspective of the overall industry status, most county-level cultural tourism projects still have obvious shortcomings: some areas blindly replicate popular scenic spots and follow the trend to create homogenized business formats, lacking core cultural elements; the product system is singular, mainly focusing on sightseeing, with insufficient extended business formats such as health care, study tours, intangible cultural heritage, and rural experiences; the supporting facilities are incomplete and the level of service refinement is not high, resulting in short stay time for tourists and low secondary consumption, making it difficult to "convert traffic into retention and popularity into long-term effectiveness".

To truly capitalize on the tourism boom in county-level areas, the industry needs to cultivate its cultural tourism sector with a differentiated, high-quality, and holistic approach, achieving comprehensive transformation and upgrading. Compared to the commercialized characteristics of mature scenic spots, the biggest core advantage of county-level cultural tourism lies in the scarcity of pristine resources and the rich local atmosphere. Localities need to abandon the misconception of prioritizing infrastructure over content, deeply explore their regional ecological characteristics, folk customs, and local industries, create unique cultural tourism IPs, and replace homogenized trendy tourist attractions with distinctive local experiences.

Ultimately, the competition in cultural tourism popularity hinges on service and experience. Localities need to continue addressing shortcomings in county-level infrastructure, optimizing supporting systems such as self-driving travel, homestay accommodation, convenient services, and smart tourism, and enhancing their capacity to handle visitor flow. Refined services will improve tourist experience and satisfaction. Simultaneously, they must break away from the isolated development model of individual counties, promoting resource sharing, route connectivity, and complementary advantages among neighboring counties. Joint efforts should be made to create high-quality cross-regional tourism routes, avoiding homogeneous competition and leveraging cluster advantages to enhance the overall market competitiveness of county-level cultural tourism.

From the perspectives of capital markets and industry development, the rise of county-level tourism has brought new growth opportunities to listed cultural tourism companies. For traditional scenic spot and cultural tourism operation companies, penetrating the county-level market, developing immersive rural cultural tourism experiences, and creating lightweight, distinctive business models can effectively mitigate the high risks of heavy asset investment, appropriately reduce operating costs, and broaden profit margins. Companies can leverage their operational, brand, and channel advantages to deeply participate in the content creation, business operation, and brand promotion of county-level cultural tourism projects, revitalizing existing county resources, achieving a transformation from "traffic operation" to "value operation," and tapping into new growth dividends in the cultural tourism industry.

The rise of county-level tourism has redefined how mass tourism is conducted and opened up new avenues for the high-quality development of the cultural and tourism industry. We look forward to more small-town landscapes gaining wider recognition and rural vitality being unleashed, making county-level tourism a truly sustainable new driving force for revitalizing local economies and enriching the cultural and tourism market.

(Source: Securities Daily; Author: Jiao Yue)