CNR Financial Review | Double Fake Overlay: Dual Empowerment of Consumption and Education

With spring weather and clear views, the spring break and the Qingming holiday overlap and interact, giving rise to a featured consumer hotspot for parent-child study tours, unleashing the endogenous drive of cultural and tourism consumption, and achieving a two-way convergence of consumption upgrading and educational quality improvement—showcasing the strong resilience of China’s consumer market.

“Two holiday overlays” precisely matches the travel needs of families with children, making “springtime study tour + parent-child companionship” the mainstream of consumption. On the first day of the spring break, the Xie Yuda Tea Museum Garden in Huangshan Huizhou District received more than 2,000 parent-child study-tour visitors in a single day; the “One Million Parent-Child, Spring Travel in Hefei” campaign in Hefei attracted one million families to participate, injecting vitality into the city’s cultural and tourism sector and adding a warm touch to its character.

Million Parent-Child Spring Travel in Hefei (Photo released by China National Radio; Image source: Hefei Culture and Tourism)

Data confirms that the holiday consumer structure continues to optimize and that domestic-demand potential keeps being released. Meituan Travel shows that during this Qingming holiday, the share of long-distance trips accounts for nearly four tenths; destinations such as Beihai in Guangxi and Nanjing in Jiangsu have seen rising popularity, and “cross-migration travel” within the Yangtze River Delta has been active. Qunar big data indicates that in 2026, the Qingming Festival is shifting from a “seasonal-terms holiday” to a “tourism-based holiday,” with the travel radius expanding from short trips to long trips across provinces, driving coordinated development of related industries such as transportation and accommodation.

Behind the consumer boom are precise policy guidance and efforts from the supply side. The Anhui Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, the Education Department, and others jointly hosted a study-tourism conference, releasing 50 high-quality study-tour products and more than 500 preferential policy measures, including ticket discounts for 233 A-level scenic spots and RMB 17 million in cultural and tourism consumption vouchers. In Yixian County, parent-child study-tourism trips grew year over year by 50% in the same period, demonstrating the effectiveness of “policy empowerment + distinctive supply.”

Parent-child study tours have also become an important carrier for quality education and cultural heritage. From Confucius’s educational philosophy of “bathing by the Yi River, blowing in the wind of dance days,” to today’s children experiencing immersive visits at tea museums and Huizhou-style ancient villages, the “tourism + education” model enriches the connotations of quality education, enabling traditional culture to be passed down.

The combined effect of the spring break and the Qingming holiday shows a new path for the holiday economy. As the holiday system improves and supporting policies are optimized, this model is expected to develop into a distinctive spring-travel holiday format. In the future, by focusing on consumer demand, strengthening policy guidance, and tapping into local characteristics, the holiday economy can continue to release momentum—achieving two-way empowerment between consumption and education and injecting motivation into growth in domestic demand. (Commentary by a China National Radio commentator, Liu Hao)