"In early August, we took our child to Yangshuo, Guangxi. We took a boat trip on the Li River, went rafting on the Yulong River, and ate a lot of local delicacies on West Street in Yangshuo. We felt that the pace of life here was very slow, which was perfect for relaxing. For the child, it was a great opportunity to see the beautiful scenery described in textbooks and also experience the local customs and culture," Ms. Sun, a consumer from Beijing, told reporters today.

This summer, many tourists like Ms. Sun chose to travel to small county towns as their destination. The continued popularity of "county-level tourism" has become a major highlight of this year's summer cultural tourism market.

According to data compiled by reporters from multiple travel platforms, the overall summer tourism market saw steady growth this year, with tourists exhibiting a series of new characteristics in their destination choices, travel methods, and consumption preferences: traditional popular cities remained highly popular, while niche destinations and county-level tourism experienced accelerated growth; summer retreats, family trips, and sports events and performances flourished, driving the continued vitality of the summer cultural and tourism market; and tourists' consumption demands accelerated their shift towards "deep experiences," with demand centered on emotional value and experiential consumption continuing to strengthen.

Various travel demands are being released at an accelerated pace.

The overall tourism market saw steady growth this summer. According to the "2026 Summer Travel Report" released by Fliggy on August 28th, the platform saw record-high bookings this summer, with domestic hotel room nights increasing by 66% year-on-year and domestic ticket sales increasing by nearly 30% year-on-year.

Driven by the high temperatures, summer vacation travel surged this summer, with a number of hidden gem towns in the "20-degree cool zone" emerging as dark horses. Data from Qunar.com shows that airfares to cities such as Lishui in Zhejiang, Bijie and Liupanshui in Guizhou, Delingha in Qinghai, and Datong in Shanxi all increased by more than 80% year-on-year.

Family travel is the mainstay of the summer tourism market. Data from the Tongcheng Travel platform shows that, driven by demand for family travel, traditional theme parks remain popular, while museums, nature parks, zoos, and outdoor study tours continue to see increased popularity. In addition, "traveling based on textbooks" is a popular new trend for family travel this summer. On the platform, bookings for group tours and customized tours related to primary and secondary school textbook content have increased by over 60% year-on-year.

This summer, the integration of culture, sports, and tourism accelerated and deepened, with trends like "traveling with the games" and "going to a city for a performance" moving from sporadic to large-scale and regular activities. Regional sports events such as the Jiangsu Super League, Guangdong Super League, and Northeast Super League, as well as concerts and music festivals across the country, gained widespread popularity. Various destinations launched a series of tourism products and cultural tourism promotion activities centered around these events, including "sports and performance tickets +", extending tourists' stay and boosting consumption in multiple sectors such as catering, accommodation, and shopping, injecting new vitality into the local cultural tourism market.

Niche destinations continue to expand

This summer, tourists have been exploring new destinations, with more emerging and niche destinations attracting customers seeking personalized and in-depth travel experiences by offering unique cultural IPs, pristine natural landscapes, relaxed vacation atmospheres, and differentiated vacation experiences. This has made "county tours" a major highlight of this summer's cultural tourism market.

In late July this year, Tongcheng Travel released the "2026 Summer Slow-Paced Travel: 'County Tour' Trend Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "County Tour" report), which showed that the booking popularity of "County Tour" related products increased by 63% year-on-year, and the popularity of county-level car rentals increased by more than 75%. Among them, Anji, Yangshuo, Pingtan, Antu, Wuyuan, Shexian, Tonglu, Zhaosu, Yingxian, and Libo ranked among the top ten popular "County Tour" destinations.

The surge in "county-based tourism" has also boosted the popularity of a number of unique and less-visited scenic spots. The "county-based tourism" report shows that a number of county-level scenic spots, such as Anji Cloud Grassland, Shexian Huizhou Ancient City, Zhaosu Jade Lake, and Wuyuan Huangling, have seen outstanding search and booking activity, with related day trip bookings increasing by more than 50% compared to last summer.

Wei Xiang, a researcher at the Institute of Finance and Economics Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, analyzed that the continued rise in popularity of niche destinations and county-level tourism this summer is mainly due to three reasons: First, tourists' travel concepts have changed, moving away from high-intensity, checklist-style trips and favoring more relaxing, stress-relieving, and immersive leisure experiences. Second, county-level infrastructure has been upgraded, with transportation, hotels, and guesthouses continuously improving, providing the necessary facilities to accommodate overnight tourists, while also offering affordable prices and combining unique resources with good value for money. Third, social media platforms have facilitated dissemination, helping many niche destinations and counties gain wider recognition, further attracting visitors and boosting the county-level cultural tourism market.

Slow-paced experience consumption is gaining popularity

This summer, demand for experiential consumption continued to strengthen. Data released by Tuniu.com on August 28 showed that among domestic travel product bookings on the platform, the number of bookings for customized tours increased by more than three times year-on-year, and the number of bookings for "hotel + attraction" independent travel packages increased by nearly 30% year-on-year; among individual product bookings, the number of bookings for air tickets and hotels both increased by more than 40% compared with the same period last year.

"From large tours to small tours, from sightseeing to experiential travel, and from a focus on scenic spots to a focus on hotels, with the changing consumption concepts, tourists' demand for high-quality or cost-effective tourism products continues to grow," said Qi Chunguang, Vice President of Tuniu.com.

Li Mengran, Media and Public Relations Manager of Utour, told reporters that this summer, the company created a series of domestic themed products called "Intangible Cultural Heritage in China". The products deeply explore the core of intangible cultural heritage in various places and launch more than 10 immersive intangible cultural heritage experience small group tours. The entire series incorporates more than 50 characteristic intangible cultural heritage experience projects. The products have received widespread praise from the market as soon as they were launched.

“Taking our ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage in China—Huizhou’ route as an example, this product has been developed into a one-stop Huizhou culture study tour. Tourists can enjoy a Huangmei Opera-themed banquet, learn to sing Huizhou opera with folk artists, and also hand-paint oil-paper umbrellas, make bamboo carvings, and experience the ancient Hu Kaiwen ink-making method. Through hands-on experience, they can understand the thousand-year-old cultural heritage behind Huizhou-style stationery, opera, and traditional handicrafts,” said Li Mengran.

It's worth noting that bookings for regular-speed trains (K-series and T-series trains) and travel products labeled "green train" or "train tour" have increased by over 45% this summer. Previously, time spent "on the road" was considered a cost of travel; now, more and more tourists are willing to spend a day or even several days on slow trains—the scenery outside the window, conversations in the carriage, and a hot meal on the platform all become part of the travel experience. When the consumption scenario extends from the destination to the train itself, and then to every small station along the route, the green train transforms from a means of transportation into a travel product.

Xue Bingbing, a researcher at Tongcheng Research Institute, analyzed that the popularity of green-train travel is not a short-term phenomenon, but rather a signal of a structural shift in tourism consumption concepts. This trend will continue to drive cultural and tourism products from a "traffic logic" to a "retention logic." How to get tourists to slow down, stop, and want to return will become a new battleground for destination competition. In the future, tourism enterprises should deepen their focus on train travel products, launching more differentiated products around the niche scenarios of green-train travel, allowing more travelers to experience the true joy of travel at a slower pace. (Source: Workers' Daily)