Autumn views, cultural vibes beckon to travelers

Destinations with natural autumn views are vying with those featuring historical relics and cultural vibes in a bid to attract visitors, as travel agencies expect a tourism surge during the approaching National Day holiday, a weeklong break that starts on Tuesday.

The holiday, from Oct 1 to 7, is a celebration of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. It is the second-longest holiday after Spring Festival, which falls in February, and its long duration is ideal for people who want long-distance tours.

The Ministry of Transport estimated that the mainland will see about 1.94 billion cross-regional trips — those between provincial-level regions or from one city or county to another — over the seven-day holiday, and such trips will be mainly for tourism and family reunions.

Chen Xiaoyue, a 31-year-old from Beijing, said: "Over the past two months, we've been planning a trip to the Inner Mongolia autonomous region in North China. I can't wait to start the journey to explore the fairy-tale-like place with 'golden' forests and grasslands in autumn."

She said that she and her husband will drive to the region's Ulaanqab from Beijing and then spend four days in the region.

"My friends told me that the best view of the region is always from the roadside. We've made loose travel schedules and booked farm stays to experience the slow-paced and quiet life of the grassland."

Based on current bookings, travel portal Tuniu said that over half of bookings are to domestic long-distance tourism spots, including Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing in Jiangsu province and Chengdu in Sichuan province. These destinations attract travelers with their distinctive cultural vibes or historical relics, as well as diversified animal and plant life.

Tuniu said that cultural experience trips and autumn viewing are in a tight race to win travelers during the coming holiday, after the hit video game Black Myth: Wukong, adapted from the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, turned cultural tourism sites into a "tourism bandwagon" in recent months.

North China's Shanxi province, which contributed 27 game scenes out of Black Myth: Wukong's total of 36 — most of which are closely related to Buddhist culture and Taoism — has prepared for the holiday tourism rush.

According to travel services platform Trip.com Group, as of Monday, tour bookings to Shanxi had increased 26 percent year-on-year.

The province's culture and tourism bureau also unveiled digital travel routes with map services app AutoNavi. With these recommended routes, travelers can get clear and easier access to tourism spots highlighting the mysterious cultural vibes of Black Myth: Wukong.

The holiday's long duration has also generated increasing bookings to overseas sites, with Asian destinations that have shorter flights being the preference.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, one of the top overseas destinations for people from the mainland, expects that more than 10 million travelers from the mainland will enter and exit the region from Saturday to Oct 7, according to the region's immigration department.

Qi Chunguang, vice-president of Tuniu, said that about 60 percent of people booking overseas tour packages at the platform have chosen short-distance destinations, including Japan, Thailand, Maldives and Indonesia.

In addition, places in Europe such as Serbia and Hungary "will also see an influx of Chinese travelers, thanks to their friendly visa policies", Qi said.

The latest estimates from the National Immigration Administration are that mainland exits and entries will reach 1.75 million per day during the holiday period, a number that would mark a year-on-year rise of 18.5 percent. The administration said that the entry and exit peaks will fall on Tuesday — the first day of the holiday, and Oct 6, a day before the vacation period ends.

Flight Master, a travel services platform, said that the nation will operate about 13,000 international flights over the seven-day break, or 85.5 percent of the level in 2019, before the COVID-19 outbreak. Those flights will mainly be bound for Southeast Asia and East Asia — including Thailand, Japan and South Korea — accounting for almost 80 percent of the total international flights.

Zhu Xingxin in Taiyuan and Luo Wangshu and Yang Zekun in Beijing contributed to this story.