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This is Roundtable.
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I'm Steve Hatherly today with Yushan and Feifei.
Coming up, imagine checking out of your life for one whole month.
No work commute, no city noise.
Just mountain air and temperatures that never even approach 30 degrees.
Sounds pretty good, right?
Well, that's exactly what thousands across China are doing right now, trading humid streets for highland villages and northern retreats.
So what happens when escaping the heat stops being a luxury and starts being survival?
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As summer temperatures climb across much of China, people, some people, many people, are relocating for weeks at a time, swapping sweltering cities for mountain towns and highland retreats, even renting spare rooms in some half-empty villages just for the season.
Others, they're trading one famous destination for several smaller, shorter trips closer to home.
From mountain retreats to cool villages that might not get visited otherwise, people are on the go.
Local governments have responded.
Businesses have responded as well.
There are wellness retreats and long stay packages and new rail and flight routes being built for the heat escapers.
And it is a real trend, which is why we're talking about it here on the show today.
It's kind of a cool summertime trend, pun intended, I suppose, is that people are looking to change up their vacation plans according to the number of days they have off.
No, not necessarily, but according to the temperatures outside.
Yeah, I think looking for cool places, or in Chinese called 避暑, escape the heat, is extremely popular, especially around this time of every year.
For example, when people are thinking about escape the heat regions, places like Yunnan or northeastern regions of China,
Inner Mongolia could be on the list for many people.
Geography question.
Yunnan's down south.
Yes, southwest.
But yet still cooler in the summertime.
Yeah, because it's a highland.
The highland called Yunnan and Guizhou.
So that's why when we're talking about escape the heat in China, we're not only just heading north.
You're heading up.
Yeah.
Which is also north, I suppose.
Have been doing to Inner Mongolia or Northeastern China, but also many people are going to Yunnan, Guizhou for a longer stay.
For example, I think
On a platform called Tujia, which is for homestays, they are saying 15 nights plus bookings up 20% year on year, with bookings in Yunnan and Guizhou up 40% more.
So there are a lot of people that actually are relocating.
I think one of my friend's family, they relocated to a small border town in Yunnan called Tengchong for the summer.
Yes, I've been there.
Yeah, it's very, very cool.
The weather is really cool in summer and very warm in winter.
So it's basically we call them every season looks like the spring.
That you can basically enjoy yourself at around 20, 25 degrees Celsius all year round.
So it's a perfect place.
And that's in Yunnan?
That's in Yunnan.
I've met three people from Yunnan so far, and they've all said the same thing.
Please come to Yunnan.
It's spring all year.
Yeah, yeah, it's the slogan for Yunnan tourism.
When the first person told me that, I was like, oh, that's pretty cool.
The second person told me that, and I felt like, oh, that's interesting.
That's what the first person said.
And then when the third person said it, I thought, is this the tourist slogan?
Yeah, yeah, it is.
It is the tourist slogan for Yunnan Kunming, the capital city for a long time.
And the similar slogan sort of also applied to Guizhou as well.
They're using slogans like Cool Guizhou or Cool Guiyang in recent years.
And that's why, for example, in this year, I have another report coming from Tongtong Travel.
They said...
Their top 10 long haul list on top by booking volume has like places like Guiyang, like Kunming, like Liu Pengshui.
They're all from that highland region in southwest regions of China.
So for Tongcheng travel, they are seeing their search interest in terms like beat the heat, cooling off, night tour spiked 230% month over month since July.
And they're also seeing hotel bookings in 20 degrees Celsius, cool zone cities, also up 50% year on year.
So it's interesting to me because typically when we think about summertime, I mean, people like the heat.
They like the hotter temperatures and they want to head toward the hotter temperatures, not away from it.
And some of these travelers, they are, you know, southern travelers are the major driver of a lot of these things.
Cooling of the heat destinations.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Because it's hotter.
It's very hot.
Yeah, okay.
And humid.
See, I made that previous comment as a Canadian.
I'm like, we always travel towards the heat.
I don't know what's going on here.
Yeah, it's really hot down south.
That's why people are doing this.
And some of other like trends is also showing I think the interests of this year's tourists.
It is quite obvious during this like hot summer because of maybe the I have to say the climate change of the world maybe.
And then they're heading to some of these places.
And what I can see is that some cities like Changsha, Yining, Xinjiang bookings up more than five times compared to last year.
And then Wuhu to Guiyang, Hefei to Yining, and Zhengzhou to Mangshi, all up roughly four times year on year.
They're all going to these Guizhou and Yunnan cities.
Because, for example, for the city of Changsha, it's one of, I would say, furnace cities in China.
You know, we have a lot of furnace cities.
They're like cities like Chongqing, Changsha, Wuhan.
They're just so hot and humid in summer.
It's beyond bearable.
So you are seeing people escaping from places like Changsha to a place in Xinjiang, which is much cooler.
So when you say unbearable, would that be temperatures approaching 40?
I think in Chongqing, they are seeing temperatures like above 40 degrees Celsius this summer and also very humid.
Totally makes sense.
So it's sort of baking, steaming in that city.
So a lot of these vacations, and this is kind of a growing section of the market, people are choosing closer destinations.
They're choosing shorter cool-cations.
Can we call them cool-cations?
Yeah.
Instead of like the long haul, you know, 10 day trip that you save up for for a year, people are taking advantage of maybe a two, three, four day getaway.
Because like you said, because of climate change, one of the reasons that a lot of summer days have become unbearable, that you just can't cool yourself down in cities.
And that's why it's also important for them to have like a weekend escape.
From the hot weekdays.
For example, in Zhejiang, which is known for very hot days in summer as well, they are seeing a lot of small counties like Pan'an County, they are branding themselves as one of the cooling towns
One of the weekend short getaway for families surrounding that in that region.
So what can you see there?
What can you do there?
How does it deserve the title of Coolcation?
Well, they have a lot of slogans and brand names for themselves.
They call themselves Zhejiang Bongzai, meaning they have very compact mountain sceneries, and that's why they're marketed as a weekend escape for families.
And also these have a canyon, they have whirlpools, they have 18 whirlpools, Gog, where nearly 1000 meter riverbed drop creates a chain of rapids and pools.
So that's why it's a perfect place to cool yourself down for a weekend.
You've got the cover from the trees.
Yeah, and then different pools and small lakes.
And also they are branding itself surrounding the traditional Chinese medicine and herbal wellness cuisine.
They also market itself as China's town of medicine herbs.
So not only you are able to cool yourself in mountains, in forests and lakes, you can also enjoy some of the herbal dietourism packages.
That's also what the local government is pushing at the same time as well.
So another example would be in Liyang in Jiangsu province.
They have what they call the Nanshan Bamboo Sea, meaning they have about 5,800 acres of bamboo forests.
Oh, wow.
Where the temperature just runs, of course, naturally below the normal average in the surrounding area.
So they are marketing itself differently.
As one of the few natural oxygen bars
Oh yes in the yangtze delta you've heard about i've heard about it and um my hometown is also close to that region and then i think a lot of people would actually like recommend me to go there when i was in college because
It was a place that is not far from your place, but it is naturally cooler.
And when you go to that places, I think now it's also the trend.
People are not only visiting for that famous places.
They're also going to these smaller counties to enjoy the local culture, local, probably like the minority ethnic groups.
And also, they're also enjoying that kind of like naturally cooler temperature because they, I don't think, of course, we have AC and all of these.
Yeah, it's not the same.
Yeah, it is not the same.
And you can always go to outside and at the same time feel the cooler temperature.
You asked me, Feifei, before the show, do Canadians do this?
What is Canadians' cool down?
Then I realized what a stupid question that is.
I think it's 90% of Canadians live right along the US border, which is kind of a fun statistic to show.
So we don't really need to escape the summer heat.
Let me put this stereotype to sleep, though.
It doesn't snow in Canada like 12 months a year.
I've had American friends from like the way down south say like, so there are igloos like where you're from?
And I said, no, not where I'm from.
You'd have to go pretty far north to find find those.
But yeah, it gets about, where I'm from in Nova Scotia, it gets to be about 30, 31, 32 degrees in the summertime.
And how long?
When it gets hot, how long?
Yeah.
About 15, 20 minutes.
It's already the hot situation.
For about a month or so, maybe.
But it doesn't get so hot that we feel like we need to escape it.
We welcome that temperature with open arms.
So you would be one of the destiny, Caucasian destinies.
If you dropped Nova Scotia next to Yunnan, it would be very competitive, I guess.
So those are for the short-term getaways.
Let's talk about the longer ones.
The Guizhou destination.
So the average before was under three days, and now it's up to over 15 days.
There's a platform.
Tujia?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's for homestays.
Yeah.
So they have 15 plus night bookings available there.
And those are up 22 percent from last year.
So and then the region itself like Yunnan and Guizhou is up over 40 percent from the from the year before.
So people are.
So this tells me.
Okay, we have one vacation style getaway for three days or so.
But then we have the other one where it's like, I'm just going to move there for maybe a month or so and wait until my home city cools down.
Yeah, it's also one of the options for people to have, especially for families with kids.
I think I've heard a lot of my friends, especially with really young kids, two or three year olds,
When the summer in Beijing is just too hot and humid, it's not very, you know, for young kids, they can't go outside because it's just too hot.
And then you need a place for children to run around, roam around freely and not trap them in a very small apartment.
And then these kind of places can be one of the options not only because they have like cooler weathers compared to cities like Beijing, but also I guess the activities there are just so abundant and diverse.
So that your children can really roam around.
They don't get bored.
Yeah, enjoy them.
For example, in Guizhou,
I think one of the reasons why Guizhou and Yunnan is so popular is not only they are very cool in temperatures, but also they have very diverse ethnic groups, minority cultures.
Like in Guizhou, for example, they have the Village Super League we talked about on Roundtable before, the Chun Chao, for children that enjoy sports, they can go to enjoy that.
But also they can go to like enjoy the Dong and Miao minority communities.
And ethnic groups, communities enjoy their local culture, traditional singing, embroidery, a lot of crafts that children can enjoy as well.
And that applies to short term vacations or longer term vacations.
But I'm wondering though, because for the longer term, like for the month long thing, it can't be easy for people to do that.
Right.
Because, OK, the kids are out of school, but then you've got the parents who need to go with the kids, I assume.
But can people go away for a month?
That doesn't seem plausible for a lot of families, maybe.
Yeah and that's why i think a lot of these packages that's one thing um these places are designing these specific package for probably a two-week holiday package or um like 15-day package as you mentioned and these probably dual worker families they can just ask for maybe for one week
Um day off and then they can make it accumulate them together to to be a two-week holiday and also it is the time for summer break of all of these students and then i think this is probably also the aside from for spring festival
It is the only time that they can spend uh
A relatively longer time together with your children together
Yeah and there are different options like grandparents can also take the children on vacations
If they decide to stay in a place for a month for instance uh the grandparents can be with the kids for the majority of the time and the the parents can can take like one or two week off
Yeah, that's what my parents used to do with me.
Only after I grew up did I realize, I think my parents were trying to get rid of me in the summertime.
Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.
That is the golden, not only the vacation time.
You don't need to say definitely.
It's not only the vacation time for the children themselves, but also for parents.
Some time for us, alone time.
You're speaking from experience.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
My kid is right now in Hainan enjoying her swimming classes and I'm in Beijing enjoying my alone time.
Lovely.
That is summer vacation.
Yuzhen, do you prefer these?
If you had a choice, the three day getaway or the 15 day stay somewhere cool in the mountains, which one would you choose?
I wonder.
Um for now i think green night is my option because i've been there before and i know how comfortable it can be and living in these kind of villages and when you wake up you wake up in that misty mountainous area it is just you feel like you're living in fairyland
A really slow morning with no alarms.
Just enjoy your coffee or tea in your hand and just gaze into distance, not thinking about anything.
And I think that is the definition of vacation, isn't it?
You don't do much.
You don't do anything.
When's your kid coming home?
Don't ask that question.
It sounds like a deadline, like a countdown of my good days for the summer.
I think it's a fun idea to get away and do something that you don't typically do.
And I think maybe that's part of the attraction, too, is that some of the bigger cities in China, Shanghai and Beijing, a family trip to Beijing, family trip to Guangzhou or somewhere big, that would be the typical vacation.
This summer, let's go to a mountain retreat.
Yeah.
Up north.
Picking some mushrooms in the forest.
So you get to have an experience that you've never had before.
And there's lots of stuff to do in the locations you illustrated that as well.
Well, whatever you're doing with your summer, please do have a good time, whatever kind of trip you decide to take.
That'll do it for Roundtable 4 this afternoon.
Thanks for spending your time with us today.
I'm Steve Hatherly for Yushun and Feifei.
Have a good one and please do come back again next time.
