China unleashes leisure tourism consumption’s greater potential

Leisure tourism has become an option for more and more Chinese tourists, given the ongoing consumption upgrading in China.

An increasingly wider variety of leisure tourism products are hitting the Chinese market, including national resorts, state-level cities and blocks serving tourism and leisure, cultural tours, medical tours, sports travel, ski vacations, ecotourism, and industrial tourism.

A view of a scenic area in Ruicheng county, Yuncheng city, north China's Shanxi Province. (Photo/Xue Jun)

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism (MCT) recently added three scenic sites to a list of national tourist resorts, namely, the Suqian Luoma Lake Tourist Resort in east China's Jiangsu Province, the Beihai Yintan national tourist resort in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and the Boao Dongyu Island Tourist Resort in Qionghai of south China's Hainan Province. There are 63 national tourist resorts across the country.

Haikou, capital of Hainan, has built business blocks featuring rich culture, including the Qilou old street, a historical and cultural block, by tapping into the value of history and culture in recent years. In addition to the Qilou old street, another five such business streets have been put into use in the provincial capital.

Since the beginning of 2023, the tourism market in Haikou has seen a rapid expansion and improvement in the structure and quality, said Wang Ke, head of the city's bureau of tourism, culture, radio, television and sports.

Tourists enjoy leisure time at a scenic area in Miaowa village, Luoning county, central China's Henan Province. (Photo/Li Feng)

During this year's May Day holiday, Haikou received 761,900 tourist visits, up 148.1 percent year on year, with total tourism revenue rising by 176.7 percent to 854 million yuan ($118 million).

Leisure tourism is a new trend of tourism consumption and an inevitable trend of tourism consumption upgrading, said Xiong Chengyu, dean of the School of Cultural Industries Management at the Communication University of China.

More and more tourists now prefer leisure tourism and in-depth tourism experiences to tours in a hurried fashion.

"I visited scenic spots and duty-free shops during the daytime and had a spa at night. I enjoyed my vacation in a more relaxed manner," said Shen Yi, a tourist from Guangzhou in south China's Guangdong Province, who was on vacation in Haikou. Shen always arranged trips with tight schedules in the past, but now prefers to stay longer or even the whole holiday in one place to better relax.

Leisure tourism has grown into a new growth point for the tourism market. For instance, tourists can experience a wide variety of leisure tourism activities such as living in tree houses and taking a dip in the hot springs at the Tianmu Lake Tourism Resort in Liyang of Jiangsu. The resort recorded 518,200 tourist visits during the May Day holiday, with direct revenue exceeding 71.21 million yuan, up 74.67 percent and 67.21 percent from 2019, respectively, said Leng Jie, deputy director of the management office of the resort.

A tourist picks fruits at a family farm in Xianzong town, Hanshan county, east China's Anhui Province. (Photo/Ou Zongtao)

China has ushered in an era of mass tourism, and people's demand for leisure tourism that can soothe their mood, provide them a novel experience and enable them to learn culture has been released quickly, as living standards continue to improve, said an official at the MCT's resource development department.

China will build various state-level blocks serving tourism and leisure with distinctive cultural features, according to a development plan for the tourism sector during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025).

Since 2022, the MCT and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) have rolled out 111 state-level blocks serving tourism and leisure, which has promoted the protection of historical and cultural heritage, and raised consumer spending on leisure and tourism. These blocks have become new hotspots for tourists.

The development plan also called for developing distinctive cultural and creative products and tourism commodities, which have become important parts of leisure tourism consumption.

Industry experts suggested cultivating competitive tourism enterprises, which are the major providers of leisure tourism products, and developing new products and services to foster new highlights of leisure tourism.

Liu Shilin, head of the Institute of Urban Science at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, called for enriching the cultural connotation of leisure tourism services.

Last year, the NDRC and the MCT issued an outline for the development of tourism and leisure between 2022 and 2030, which proposed accelerating the high-quality development of tourism and leisure to better meet people's needs for a better life.

To unleash the greater potential of leisure tourism consumption, China needs to meet the trend of diversified and personalized tourism consumption and offer quality tourism products and services to promote the high-quality development of leisure tourism while better meeting people's needs for a better life, said Liu Min, a professor at Beijing Union University.