Holiday tourism is a barometer of the national economy and a thermometer of social development, serving as a new arena for cultural exchange and mutual learning among civilizations. With National Day coinciding with the Mid-Autumn Festival, the final "super golden week" of the Year of the Snake saw clear autumn weather, a full moon, and a vibrant display of flowers. Urban and rural residents showed a continued surge in their desire to travel, and a rich supply of cultural activities and tourism products was provided across the country. The vibrant National Day, the beauty of autumn, the pure moon, and the joy of the people became the main themes of holiday travel. The tourism market flourished in an orderly manner, characterized by integration and innovation. Key indicators such as domestic tourism numbers, expenditure, travel radius, destination recreation radius, and inbound and outbound tourism reached record highs. According to calculations by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's data center, 888 million domestic trips were made nationwide during the eight-day National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, an increase of 123 million trips compared to the seven-day National Day holiday in 2024. Total domestic tourism expenditure reached 809.006 billion yuan, an increase of 108.189 billion yuan compared to the seven-day National Day holiday in 2024.

Flowers in full bloom, full of happiness

During their trips, tourists promoted revolutionary culture and cultivated a deep sense of patriotism. The September 3rd military parade and General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech on National Day greatly inspired patriotism among the people. Revolutionary memorial halls, historical exhibition halls, patriotic education bases, and red tourism attractions became the most popular attractions during the holiday. On the first day of the holiday, over 120,000 tourists and citizens gathered in Tiananmen Square to watch the flag-raising ceremony and sing the national anthem. Young people from across the country stood solemnly before the Monument to the People's Heroes, expressing their deepest gratitude, "May the prosperous times be as you wish, and may the gentle breeze take you home." Throughout their trips, tourists marveled at the crimson mountains and emerald rivers. They visited Shaoshan in Hunan, the site of the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai, Nanhu Lake in Jiaxing, Nanchang in Jiangxi, Jinggangshan, Yan'an in Shaanxi, Xibaipo in Hebei, and the Beijing War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression Memorial Hall, paying tribute and cherishing their memories. Their love for the Party and their country was naturally aroused. "Reading thousands of books and traveling thousands of miles" has been a long-standing Chinese tradition. Travel is never simply about seeing the mountains, rivers, and scenery; it is a journey of scholarly inquiry and a journey of love for the country and the world. Outbound tourists no longer just check in and take photos, but also deeply experience contemporary life, expand their international horizons and showcase the image of contemporary China through equal, confident and inclusive cultural exchanges.

During their trips, tourists experienced a peaceful and tranquil time and witnessed a peaceful and prosperous nation. Family outings, parent-child outings, and red foliage viewing tours surged in popularity during the holiday season. In Yichun, Heilongjiang, visitors enjoyed the picturesque scenery of Wuhua Mountain, Tangwang River, and the Korean pine forest at 45 degrees north latitude. At Suzhou Taihu Wetland Park, vast expanses of reeds swayed in the wind, painting the lake golden at sunset. In Wushan, Chongqing, visitors felt as if they were transported to a classic scene from the film "When the Leaves Cover the Mountains." At Beijing's Fragrant Hills, the World Horticultural Exposition Park, and Diaoyutai Ginkgo Avenue; at the World Lotus Expo in Suining, Sichuan; at the "so close, so beautiful" Dachaoping in Beidaihe, Hebei, and the "Rice Dream Space" in Jiangzhuang, Luanzhou; at the Qingming Riverside Park and Longting Scenic Area in Kaifeng, Henan; and at botanical gardens, wetland parks, country parks, and geological parks across China, the golden forests and the soaring seagulls captivated countless visitors. Mid-Autumn Festival is a time of sweet-scented osmanthus. In Xiangshan Park in Guilin, Guangxi, "walking around, you're suddenly enveloped by the fragrance." Hangzhou's West Lake is awash with osmanthus rain, and women gather osmanthus blossoms beneath the trees, taking them home to make osmanthus cakes for their families. Such holiday scenes can't help but evoke a sense of "Tang poetry and Song lyrics, they truly live up to the hype." In this beautiful land, no matter which province or city you visit, or which village you live in; whether it's the choruses of "Ode to the Motherland" and "The Five-Star Red Flag" in squares and scenic spots, or the soft accompaniment of "Colorful Clouds Chasing the Moon" and "Jasmine Flower" in hotels and guesthouses, the world gazes upon the full moon together, sharing in the prosperity of this era.

Improved transportation infrastructure and public service systems, coupled with the widespread adoption of family cars, have made the national dream of integrated land and sea travel a reality in China's modernization drive. During the holiday season, most tourists opted for self-driving trips and self-guided vacations. The combination of various transportation modes enabled them to create a "my itinerary, my experience" experience, encompassing everything from round-trip transportation and sightseeing to leisure and leisure activities and destination living. During the holiday season, 45.7% of respondents chose self-driving, a 6.8 percentage point increase year-on-year, significantly higher than the 17.5% who chose high-speed rail and the 7.4% who chose air travel. Whether traveling by car or high-speed rail, over 75% of tourists took less than three hours for a one-way trip. Convenient transportation has encouraged some tourists to plan their trips earlier and travel off-peak, leading to holiday travel trends characterized by "expanding travel earlier, extending travel later, and making multiple trips" and multiple destinations. 79.2% of respondents visited two or three cities on a single trip. At their destinations, tourists widely used public transportation, including subways, buses, ride-hailing services, taxis, and shared bikes, viewing them as an integral part of the local experience. During the holiday period, the average travel radius of tourists was 212.66 kilometers, and the average recreational radius of tourist destinations was 23.04 kilometers, representing year-on-year increases of 14.8% and 24.5%, respectively. It is important to note that the increase in self-driving tours and vacationers is changing traditional tourism consumption behaviors and posing new challenges to the measurement of the economic and social impact of tourist destinations. For example, pre-trip expenses such as refueling, charging, and vehicle rentals, spending at highway service areas, and purchases of utilities, electricity, gas, heating, property management, and daily necessities during the use of self-owned vacation homes, short-term rental apartments, and vacation homestays are not yet covered by traditional tourism statistics and data analysis.

The expansion of the destination's recreational radius, along with the sharing of transportation and leisure spaces, will help tourism consumption reach smaller businesses, benefiting more traditional businesses and local residents. Tourism is a journey to a better life in a different place, and the high-quality, convenient, and everyday lifestyles of urban and rural residents have become increasingly important tourist attractions. The construction of a new era's tourism transportation system and the improvement of its spatial structure require not only grand narratives such as the construction of tourist airports, high-speed rail stations, the connection between national highways and expressways, and tourist scenic routes, but also the connection between feeder lines, public transportation, business districts, neighborhoods, theaters, markets, wholesale markets, intangible cultural heritage workshops, and rural tourist attractions, allowing tourists to share in the local residents' abundant happiness in every inch of space, from theaters to markets.

Beautiful scenery of China, shared by hosts and guests

The development of tourism in the new era aims to fulfill people's pursuit of a better life, embracing "poetry and distant places," allowing them to roam freely across this beautiful land and engage in dialogue among civilizations on this blue planet. Both administrative departments and market entities should conscientiously implement Xi Jinping Thought on Culture, Ecological Civilization, and Economics, and implement the important expositions and instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping on tourism, so that tourists can appreciate the beauty of nature, understand the beauty of culture, and experience the beauty of life. Tourism is an enduring way of life for mankind and an indispensable component of our increasingly fulfilling goal of a better life. Tourism in the new era requires developing tourist destinations and improving the modern tourism system. It also requires scientific guidance for national leisure activities while safeguarding the travel rights and travel needs of urban and rural residents. Tourists are residents who travel, and residents are tourists who return. In practical work, we must focus not only on developing tourist destinations but also on developing source and distribution centers. We must develop inclusive tourism and enable more urban and rural residents to participate in tourism, ensuring they have access to, can afford, enjoy, and feel at ease.

Tourist travel and arrivals are the prerequisites for all tourism activities, and consumption is the key to understanding the tourism industry. From the demand side, we have established a monitoring system for holiday tourism indicators, encompassing domestic resident outbound travel, tourist expenditure, tourist reception, and tourist behavior. This system comprehensively and systematically analyzes the operating characteristics of the tourism economy across different cycles, taking into account factors such as flow direction, volume, velocity, and quality, as well as scale, structure, and year-on-year and month-on-month growth. Tourism big data monitoring reveals that the provinces with the highest tourist output are Guangdong, Sichuan, Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu, Hebei, Hunan, Hubei, Anhui, and Zhejiang. The provinces with the highest tourist reception volume are Guangdong, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Hunan, Hubei, Zhejiang, and Anhui, accounting for 56.1% and 56.6% of the national tourism market, respectively. The cities with the highest tourist reception volume are Chongqing, Chengdu, Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Xi'an, Changsha, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Zhengzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing, Harbin, Shenyang, Kunming, Shijiazhuang, Hefei, and Jinan.

As urban and rural residents' demand for tourism and leisure grows, the tourism market and destinations are also expanding further into rural areas. Coupled with improvements in infrastructure, public services, and commercial hospitality in small and medium-sized cities and counties, the spatial distribution of tourism is becoming more balanced in the new development stage. Data indicates that holiday travel has become a regular option for rural residents seeking cultural leisure, and young people from small towns are a new force in the tourism market. During the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holidays, rural residents traveled at a rate of 22.0%, totaling 102 million trips, accounting for 11.5% of all domestic holiday trips. A market structure characterized by "urban residents moving to the countryside, farmers moving to the cities, and urban and rural tourists traveling in both directions" is taking shape, further solidifying the market foundation for the integration of mass tourism and cultural tourism. County tourism, particularly those hidden gems imbued with local flavor, culture, and technology, is attracting tourists with its attractive value. Data shows that 41.7% of tourists choose to avoid popular cities in favor of less crowded ones, while 26.3% opt for less popular destinations with less popular attractions. High-speed rail networks within regions like the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Belt are driving popularity for short-distance eco-tourism, revolutionary tourism, and visits to ancient cities and towns. The "Intangible Cultural Heritage Wonderful Night" in Liancheng County, Longyan, Fujian, the national trend electronic music and intangible cultural heritage dragon dance performances in Fuliang County, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, and the theme concert in Arxan, Inner Mongolia, have driven record-breaking visitor numbers.

Tourist trains, with their scaled-up living, standardized services, and cost-effective optimization, have won favor among senior citizens, families, and group travelers, becoming a new highlight of holiday travel. With the joint support of the tourism and transportation departments, travel agencies, in collaboration with the China Railway Corporation and local railway companies, have developed and launched distinctive tourist trains such as the New Orient Express, Silk Road Dream, Starlight Blue-Mekong, Hulunbuir, Enjoy Longjiang, Qilu Star, Starlight Yanzhao, Southern Express (Xiaoxiang), Panda, Jinghe, and Longzang. These trains connect cities and villages along the route, linking scenic spots, resorts, and unique tourist communities, presenting breathtaking views of the vast landscape and beautiful cities and towns through the train windows. Before each departure, tourists are even more diligent than the staff in wiping the windows clean and shining, ensuring the best possible view of China for their eyes and cameras.

Tourists have the right to enter, experience, and share, and both tourists and local residents have the right to sustainable development and high-quality employment. This holiday season, travel agencies, online travel agencies and tour guides, scenic spots and resorts, hotels, B&Bs, and other tourism accommodations, as well as car rentals, restaurants, retail, performing arts, and entertainment businesses, achieved relatively satisfactory financial results. Themed tours such as China Travel Service's "Double Festival Holiday Carnival," China Travel Service's "Southern Heaven, Blue Skies," Spring Airlines' "Youth on the Road: Exquisite Small Group Tours," Utour's "Crossing the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge," and Shanghai Airlines' inbound "China Grand Tour" gained market share and won a good reputation during the holiday season. On October 5th, the average occupancy rate for star-rated hotels and selected branded hotels in Nanjing reached 85.8%, while the average occupancy rate for standard B&Bs in the city also reached 82%. Occupancy rates for key star-rated hotels and B&Bs in Shenyang generally remained above 80%. Hotel and B&B brand operators such as Jinjiang, BTG Travel, New Century, Huazhu, Dongcheng, Huatian, Yellow River Homestay, and Xishuangbanna Homestay also stood out during the holiday market. During the holiday, tour guides and frontline staff were a constant presence throughout the itineraries and scenic areas. The Tengwang Pavilion scenic area in Nanchang receives an average of 20,000 visitors daily, with the average tour guide walking over 20,000 steps per day and repeating their explanations seven or eight times, earning widespread praise from visitors. Before departing, a passenger on the Enshi Qingjiang Cableway exclaimed heartfeltly, "The Qingjiang Spark's team emblem is the most reliable 'pass'!"

Diversified, personalized, and high-quality travel styles and behaviors are transforming urban and rural life scenes, public spaces, and infrastructure into new tourist attractions. This is reshaping the concept of tourism resources while expanding the boundaries of the tourism industry. Park-based businesses, business district events, first-store experiences, and highway service areas are fostering new formats that integrate local life, leisure experiences, road trips, and motels. Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei Electronics Market has embraced a new trend of "shopping tourism," becoming a popular city check-in destination for young people. Wuhan's Riverside Paradise Walk offers families a new "park-in-a-mall" micro-vacation option, featuring rooftop platforms and indoor amenities like a 13,000-square-meter water-ringed lawn and a non-powered children's playground. The Jinhua Expressway service area in Zhejiang Province has been transformed into a Panda Pig theme park, while the Qianjiang Expressway service area in Hubei Province offers specialty crayfish and stage performances. The Yanzhao Yixing membership card on the Hebei Expressway allows self-driving tourists to earn points for spending at service areas. With the expansion of the tourism market and the growth of innovation awareness in various regions and industries, more investment institutions and market players will cross over and bring more experience space and consumption options to tourists.

Integration of Culture and Tourism, Empowered by Technology

Tourist attractions, especially high-level tourist attractions and popular museums, are still the most typical tourist spaces and the cultural scenes that tourists are most willing to participate in. During the holidays, the cultural and tourism system launched the "Intangible Cultural Heritage Praises Mountains and Rivers", "Intangible Cultural Heritage Enters Scenic Spots", and "Intangible Cultural Heritage Market" to make Chinese traditional culture tangible, sensible and experiential. Museums across the country launched temporary and special exhibitions during the holidays, extended closing hours, and launched "Museum Wonderful Nights", making culture a growing innovative force in promoting the high-quality development of tourist destinations. Nanjing Hongshan Zoo held the "Giant Orangutan Advent" nature life carnival, integrating culture, nature and photography art into one park, attracting more than 400,000 visitors. The Danxia Mountain Tourist Scenic Area in Shaoguan, Guangdong, combined with the Mid-Autumn Festival Intangible Cultural Heritage Exhibition, launched a night-time landscape light and shadow show, creating an immersive tour scene that lasts day and night. Anhui Qiyun Mountain created the "National Day Leisure Season" around the four major cultural elements of immortals, heroes, hermits, and officials, and its revenue increased by 20% year-on-year.

During the holiday, the average daily visitor numbers for 5A-level scenic spots, national-level tourist resorts, and nighttime tourism consumption clusters remained relatively stable year-on-year, with popular scenic spots maintaining strong performance. Big data monitoring data shows that the following high-level tourist attractions led the way in visitor numbers: Nanjing Confucius Temple and Qinhuai Scenic Area, Hangzhou West Lake, Zhejiang Hengdian Film and Television City, Yunnan Dali Ancient City, Xi'an Tang Paradise, Chengdu Qingchengshan and Dujiangyan Irrigation System, Guangxi Qingxiushan, Zhejiang Tiantaishan, Guangzhou Baiyunshan, Nanjing Zhongshan, Zhejiang Taizhou Fucheng, Zhejiang Yandangshan, Yunnan Lijiang Old Town, Hunan Fenghuang Ancient Town, Jiangxi Lushan, Fuzhou Three Lanes and Seven Alleys, Guangdong Xiqiaoshan, Anhui Jiuhuashan, Luoyang Qingming Riverside Park in Henan, and Sichuan Emeishan, with an average growth rate of 6.3%. More urban tourists are visiting tourist and leisure districts and business districts. During the holiday, visitor numbers to monitored tourist and leisure districts increased by 5.1%.

Technology has expanded the application scenarios of smart tourism, unlocking greater tourism demand. This not only empowers traditional tourism formats and projects but also significantly expands the boundaries of the tourism industry. Mass sports and folk arts such as the "Suzhou Super League," "Zhejiang BA," and "Village Songs," as well as concerts and the revitalization of intangible cultural heritage, have become new attractions for holiday travel and leisure. "Traveling with events," "traveling with music," "traveling with textbooks," and "traveling with movies and TV" have become new drivers of holiday tourism market expansion and consumption upgrades. New spaces for cultural experiences are fostering new scenarios for tourism consumption. Nanjing's Nanyi Backstreet hosted the Drum Tower Waterfront Renewal Season, illuminating the waterfront with art fairs and music performances, welcoming approximately 150,000 visitors over the holiday. In this sense, technology itself is a tourist attraction. Visitors to Dunhuang will still visit the Mogao Grottoes, Xuanquanzhi, Mingsha Mountain, and Crescent Moon Lake. They'll also visit the Printing House, Bookstore, and Wujie. They'll also visit the New Energy Industrial Base, which covers over 100 square kilometers, to see the molten salt tower, nicknamed the "artificial little sun," over 10,000 Archimedean mirrors, and the occasional "Tyndall effect." Scientific principles and engineering techniques will become new attractions for study tours, and technological scenes and production workshops will become beautiful landscapes in China's modernization process.

Technology is empowering industries across culture, sports, education, agriculture, industry, commerce, transportation, and electricity, driving the "+ tourism" movement across these sectors. This is contributing to the improvement of the modern tourism industry system from upstream and downstream, across multiple links, and from multiple perspectives. New transportation and tourism integration initiatives, such as low-altitude flights, inland river cruises, and city cruises, are becoming new holiday travel options and spaces for cultural leisure. Modern transportation systems and new modes of transport, such as tourist trains, inland river cruises, and city cruises, are reshaping the tourism landscape, product offerings, and service quality. Advanced manufacturing and modern technologies, such as drones, robots, artificial intelligence, and big data, are effectively unlocking new demand while also spurring the introduction of new concepts and the creation of new business models. The continued growth of self-driving tourists has fueled the growth of car rental companies like Shenzhou, eHi, and Hello, as well as platforms like Didi, Fliggy, Ctrip, and Qunar. Order volume, average rental duration, and the proportion of long-term rentals all saw significant double-digit increases during this holiday season. As we've consistently emphasized, this is an era where travelers define the tourism industry and where the boundaries of tourism are being redefined. The growing tourism and leisure consumption and market innovation have also become new engines of innovation and creation in culture, sports, technology, catering, and retail across the country.

During their trips, tourists experience traditional culture and contribute to contemporary lifestyles. They extensively access accessible public spaces in cities and rural areas, joining local residents in experiencing cultural leisure activities, folk customs, and intangible cultural heritage. They also participate in mass sports and cultural activities such as street dance, esports, square dancing, and park choirs. Through their integration, experiences, and participation, tourists are profoundly and continuously influencing the economic growth and social development patterns of destinations, particularly those at the county and town levels. In most cases, these impacts are positive. For example, the concept of national holiday destinations such as Huangshan, Dali, Sanya, Moganshan, Beidaihe, and Xishuangbanna is gradually maturing, while some tourists and tour operators are resorting to rural areas with relatively rich natural conditions and cultural heritage. Unlike traditional sightseeing tourists, these tourists make extensive use of local transportation infrastructure and public cultural services, interact closely with local residents, and place higher demands on the public environment and quality of life. Holiday and year-round monitoring data indicate that tourism is playing an increasingly important role in economic growth, urban renewal, rural development, and national governance. Tourism destinations should therefore pay greater attention to industrial investment and project operations, producing data scientifically and interpreting it systematically and comprehensively. Data from localized regions and specific periods should not be interpreted as representing global and long-term trends. Furthermore, administrative resources and fiscal funds should not be used hastily to launch tourism projects, lest a new round of inefficient and idle assets be created.

Governing tourism by law and attracting people from near and far

Life is more important than scenery. When it comes to tourist safety, the media must adhere to the bottom line of "no mistakes, no failures." Reuters, the Bangkok Post, Vietnam Express, and Macau News, among other overseas media outlets, have positively evaluated China's response to typhoons, snowstorms, and other emergencies. During Typhoon Matmo, timely travel warnings and optimized border control measures were implemented to ensure passenger safety. The BBC and ABC reported on the swift and effective rescue response to the snowstorm in the Mount Everest region of Tibet. There were no major tourism safety incidents or negative public opinion during the holiday.

Party committees and governments at all levels have leveraged a combination of legal, administrative, market, and technological means to strengthen forecasting, pre-research, and pre-judgment of tourist flows, volume, and speed at different spatial scales, as well as tourist carrying capacity for cities, scenic spots, and destinations at different times. This has enabled them to promptly address potential dangers arising from factors such as tourist congestion and equipment fatigue. Suzhou's "AI Peak Avoidance" system, a major national science and technology demonstration project, issued 380 warnings, including 191 high-risk warnings for s such as the Pingjiang Historic District, Suzhou Museum, and the Humble Administrator's Garden. All of these were properly addressed, and 7,370 tourists used the "AI Peak Avoidance" intelligent service to optimize their travel itineraries.

Safety, quality, and convenience have attracted visitors from all over the world. During the holiday period, China welcomed 3.2028 million inbound tourists, including 719,000 foreign visitors. Major source countries included Myanmar, South Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Russia, Japan, the United States, Thailand, and Singapore. Russian tourists, in particular, saw double-digit growth in flight and hotel bookings, driven by the mutual visa exemption policy. Cross-border visits between Chinese and Russian tourists have become commonplace, significantly boosting border tourism.

The high-quality development of the tourism industry requires attention to both tourist satisfaction and residents' sense of achievement, and it requires careful listening to the voices of entrepreneurs and practitioners. Ignoring the rights of any party could place an unbearable burden on the sustainable development of the tourism industry. Only through joint consultation and construction can we achieve shared benefits. The Anhui Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism launched the "Super Anhui" food event and the "Hundred Operas Enter Anhui, Stars Shine in Hefei" opera event, demonstrating the trickle-down effect of modern tourism. Tongling Yongquan Town adheres to localized ingredients and rural-style catering, creating jobs and enriching over 1,200 surrounding farmers. Data monitoring and market research have revealed that ecological civilization, green tourism, and sustainable development have completed the conceptual introduction stage, gradually becoming an industry consensus and gaining recognition from tourists.

Civilized tourism has become a widely held consensus and a conscious practice. People are always the most beautiful scenery, and the empathetic connection between residents and tourists is the best travel experience. Often, tourists don't seek vouchers that most people have "heard of but never seen," nor do they seek "fancy customer favors" that cater only to specific groups, nor do they seek whether the director of a tourism bureau is an internet celebrity. Instead, they seek a sincere commitment to follow through on their words, improved, efficient, and convenient infrastructure and public services, and equality, kindness, and warmth for ordinary tourists.

The National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holidays are over, and tourism work for the final quarter of 2025 has just begun. Improving and perfecting the tourism development monitoring system and forecasting, early warning, and prediction institutions is a long-term task. Protecting the people's tourism rights, developing tourist destinations, and promoting high-quality development in the tourism industry require greater expertise, wisdom, and patience. As long as we adhere to a people-centered development philosophy and steadily promote the integration of culture and tourism and high-quality development, we will surely transform tourism into a pillar industry, an industry that serves the people's well-being, and a source of happiness.

Author | Dai Bin

Editor-in-charge | Liu Xin

Source | China Tourism Academy (Data Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism)

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