Cheery cherry blossom vistas fuel holiday escapes

With vibrant spring days around and temperatures rising across China, the country is blooming with flowers, from cherry and peach blossoms to apricot and yellow cole petals, and Chinese travelers have shown a growing preference for taking flower-viewing trips both domestically and abroad.

For the upcoming Tomb Sweeping Day holiday from April 4 to 6, going for a walk and appreciating fields of flowers are popular undertakings, and booking tickets on high-speed railways, engaging in self-driving trips and cycling have become hot options for travelers. In particular, booking volumes for HSR journeys surged nearly sixfold year-on-year, according to Alibaba's travel platform Fliggy.

Viewing cherry blossoms tops the list of a variety of horticultural visual delights during the holiday this year. Wuhan University in Hubei province; Jiming Temple in Nanjing, Jiangsu province; and Taihu Lake in Wuxi, Jiangsu, stand out as sought-after attractions for cherry blossom appreciation tours, Fliggy found.

Meanwhile, a large number of visitors are opting for group and long-haul tours for flower viewing, and small groups and tailored travel products have also seen rising popularity. Flowers blooming across sprawling fields that are especially photogenic have attracted more attention, said Qunar, a Beijing-based online travel agency.

Based on different flower blooming seasons in various regions, some popular domestic destinations for such sojourns also include Wuyuan, Jiangxi province, which is famous for its cole flowers and bucolic panoramas.

"Most Chinese travelers choosing flower-viewing trips were born in the 1990s, and many of them take self-driving trips for two to three days with their parents or children. For young people who were born after 2000, they tend to prefer long-haul trips," said Xiao Peng, a researcher with the big data research institute of Qunar.

In addition to appreciating flowers, now is also an ideal season to pick tea leaves. For instance, a twoday tour of the West Lake Longjing Tea Production Area includes the experience of picking tea leaves, as well as an in-depth research tour of the China National Tea Museum.

At the same time, demand for outbound flower-viewing trips has been high this year, as prices of traveling abroad in spring are relatively low — a traditional off-season travel period in China.

Since March, Japanese cities such as Osaka, Tokyo, Nagoya and Fukuoka began to witness cherry blossoms. In addition, Washington, DC and Jeju Island of South Korea have embraced the cheery cherry spectacle. From March to May, appreciating tulips in the Netherlands has been popular among Chinese travelers as well, said Trip.com Group, China's largest online travel agency.

Booking numbers of travel products to Japan in March and April, reserved in March, surged by 360 percent compared with bookings made in February, Trip.com said.

For bookings of car rentals in the Netherlands in March and April, booking volume jumped by 80 percent year-on-year, with the average rental duration standing at 6.6 days, and the average price of individual orders standing at 1,571 yuan ($217), Trip.com found.

Tianjin Airlines said since March 10, it has witnessed a growing number of passengers bound for Japan, with the passenger load factor of China-Japan routes up 18 percent compared with month-earlier figures.

The carrier operates flights connecting Tianjin with Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. During the cherry blossom season in Japan, the average passenger load factor of those routes is expected to reach 86 percent, the airline projected.

In addition, a growing number of Chinese travelers prefer to take a few days off from work and take a longer holiday around Tomb Sweeping Day to travel abroad.

So far, the number of overseas hotel bookings during the holiday has nearly tripled over last year. Some popular overseas destinations include Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates, Fliggy found.