Meituan: Qingming travel bookings increase by 44%, with family education and "reverse tourism" becoming highlights

Questioning AI: What new family travel trends does the surge in parent-child study tour demand reflect?

Text | Bai Xue

Editor | Liu Peng

During the Qingming holiday, affected by the overlap of “spring break” (“chun jia”) in multiple regions and the holiday schedule, the domestic culture and tourism market saw a clearly noticeable growth. According to Meituan Travel data, from April 1 to 6, nationwide flight and train ticket bookings increased by 44% year on year, and the share of travel demand from outside the province reached 63%. The post-95 generation became the main group for this trip, accounting for 48%.

Judging from overall heat, Nanjing, Beijing, Xi’an, Chengdu, Chongqing, Wuhan, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, and Luoyang ranked among the most popular Qingming holiday destinations. At the same time, the share of cross-city or cross-province medium- and long-distance trips was close to 40%. Places such as Beihai in Guangxi, Yibin in Sichuan, and Nanjing in Jiangsu became the hottest cross-regional travel destinations.

From the perspective of inter-provincial flows, the regional “mutual travel” pattern is particularly prominent: Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui each make up one another’s top choice for travel demand outside the province, and exchanges between cities in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration are especially active. Chengdu and Chongqing continue the “two-way pursuit” trend. Visitors from Guizhou are more inclined to go to Guangxi and Yunnan, chasing springtime limited-view attractions.

As the “spring break” period extends, family parent-child travel demand is concentrated around the time before and after Qingming.

According to Meituan data, search volumes for keywords such as “parent-child travel” and “study tour” easily surpassed one million times. Within the past week, the search volume for “Chengdu one-day parent-child study tour” increased threefold year on year; the search volume for “children’s outdoor study tour” increased by nearly two times year on year. Cities such as Chengdu, Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Nanjing, and Hangzhou are all popular cities for study tour searches.

It is reported that the Top 10 popular scenic spots for parent-child travel during the Qingming holiday nationwide are, in order: Hongshan Forest Zoo, Shanghai Disneyland Resort, Beijing Universal Beijing Resort, China Dinosaur Park, Yuantouzhu Scenic Area, Shanghai LEGO Land Resort, Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu Zoo, Zigong Fantawild Dinosaur Kingdom, and Guangzhou Chimelong Safari Park.

Notably, this trend has already spread ahead to the May Day holiday. Parent-child travel bookings from Hangzhou also show an increase of more than tenfold.

Although the popularity of popular cities remains, the “reverse travel” trend is significantly affecting young people’s travel decision-making.

Data shows that the overall culture and tourism bookings (including flight tickets, train tickets, hotel bookings, homestay bookings, and scenic ticket bookings) in Shangrao, Jiangxi, and Wuxi, Jiangsu, grew by 102% and 52% year on year, respectively, making them emerging destinations with relatively prominent growth rates during this holiday.

Taking Bijie in Guizhou as an example, the local area, relying on the native “Hundred Miles of Rhododendron” flower sea, has launched activities such as “ticket + traditional Chinese-style experience” and “Hanfu makeup & styling.” According to Meituan Travel data, over the past week, ticket bookings for this scenic spot increased by more than 3 times year on year, while bookings for nearby hotels and homestays rose by 47% year on year.