Tourists visit the Mingsha Mountain and Crescent Spring Scenic Area in Dunhuang, Gansu province, on July 19. ZHANG XIAOLIANG/FOR CHINA DAILY
BEIJING — China's summer travel rush is in full swing. The national railway operator expects to handle 1.01 billion passenger trips over 62 days, and aviation bookings have hit new highs. Beyond the sheer numbers, the boom is reshaping the country's cultural tourism landscape.
In the first three days since the rush began on July 1, national railways carried more than 38 million passengers, according to China State Railway Group.
Aviation data platform Umetrip showed over 27 million domestic flight bookings for July as of July 6, up 89 percent from a week earlier. International bookings exceeded 5.9 million, up 19 percent. On July 5, travel platform Qunar recorded searches for summer flights doubling from the previous day, setting a new daily record for the season.
The real story is not how many people are traveling, but where they are heading. Incremental traffic is flowing more to smaller cities rather than traditional tourism hubs. Flight bookings to Qinhuangdao in Hebei province surged 2.2 times, while Yili, in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, emerged as the top self-drive destination with popularity up 6.5 times, according to Qunar.
