Summer's here, school's out, with students hitting the road

As graduation season and summer vacation get underway in June and July, students are embarking on trips to domestic and overseas destinations with their peers, boosting the vibrancy of the tourism market, industry players found.

Theme parks, museums, cultural venues, internet-famous scenic spots, trendy business districts, as well as concerts, music festivals and other activities are all popular choices for students, and they have been increasingly pursuing personalized, flexible and new experiences.

In June, the average airfare and hotel prices domestically are nearly 40 percent lower than those in July and August. For some high-school graduates and college students, their peak travel period starts after the National College Entrance Examination on June 10 and lasts until around July 10, said Qunar, a Beijing-based online travel agency.

"Young consumers have become the main force in the cultural tourism market, boosting demand for more personalized and quality travel experiences. And more tourists are willing to explore domestic small towns and seek out some emotional satisfaction during their trips," said Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Academy.

For graduation travel, being together is the most important factor for students. For young travelers aged between 22 and 25, their hotel booking volumes in June jumped 22 percent year-on-year. Among these, hotel bookings for multiple guests accounted for over 70 percent of the total, Qunar found.

In terms of hotel bookings, the top five most popular domestic destinations for graduation travel in June are Beijing; Shanghai; Nanjing, Jiangsu province; Guangzhou, Guangdong province; and Chengdu, Sichuan province. Hotel bookings in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region grew the fastest, Qunar found.

Meanwhile, since the beginning of this year, there has been a significant increase in tourist demand for niche and in-depth travel products, said Tuniu Corp, a Suzhou, Jiangsu-based online travel agency.

"Going for traditional cultural elements, trips that can help avoid summer heat and seaside leisure trips are among sought-after choices for visitors who take journeys in summer," said Qi Chunguang, vice-president of Tuniu.

In addition, booking volumes of outbound travel orders by graduates and college students have surged this summer, thanks to multiple countries' favorable visa policies offered to Chinese visitors.

"This summer, some niche and emerging overseas destinations have received increasing attention from Chinese tourists," Qi said.

In particular, bookings of travel packages to Belgium, Luxembourg, Zambia and Greece have more than doubled year-on-year. And the bookings of travel packages to destinations such as Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan have jumped significantly, Tuniu found.

For hotel bookings, some top overseas destinations include Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, and the popularity of the countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative has been growing the fastest. Chinese visitor bookings for travel products to Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, Georgia and Egypt have soared by more than tenfold over last year, Qunar found.

In another development, the peak season for the domestic air travel market is approaching, and carriers have ramped up efforts to launch new flights or boost frequency on existing routes bound for popular tourist destinations.

Guangzhou-based China Southern Airlines plans to boost the frequency of flights connecting Beijing Daxing International Airport with Baishan Changbaishan Airport, Jilin province; and Altay Xuedu Airport, Xinjiang.

The carrier said it will operate wide-body aircraft on popular routes such as those connecting Urumqi, Xinjiang with Guangzhou and Shenzhen of Guangdong province; Beijing; Shanghai; and Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, and the number of wide-body aircraft used is likely to reach a new high.

For international flights, it plans to launch new flights connecting Guangzhou with Almaty, Kazakhstan on Wednesday, and new routes connecting Guangzhou with Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent on June 30, as well as a new service linking Harbin, Heilongjiang province with Vladivostok, Russia on July 1.