Discussion keeps the worldturning.
This is RoundTable. The train tickets are soldout.
The tourist bars areovercrowded.
The tour guides and business owners aregalvanized.
The summer holiday hasbegun.
And all across thecountry, the tourism market is heatingup.
Hello, I'm Limeing and this is RoundTable.
Today with Newholing and LeighYee, we will find out what tourists are up to during the summer travelrush.
So we are in the midst of summerholiday.
And this might be different from let's say a summer holiday in a differentcountry, like in the US and theUK.
So when exactly do summer holidays begin and why is ithere?
Well, I think it just depends on differentschools.
And for primary and middleschools, sort of they go with the local policies within that city ortown.
And Icheck, youknow, for most primary school and middleschools, there are summer vacations start in earlyJuly, which is basicallytoday.
And also for someschools, their vacation also startsearlier.
And the summer vacation sort of ends at the end ofAugust.
So the whole summer vacation will just usually last for one or twomonths.
And also forcollege, I think each university sort of decide their own summer vacation how long is it and when they will just start it and endit.
And thisyear, for most colleges and universities here inBeijing, basically there are summer vacations also starts in early July or midJuly.
And also ends at the end ofAugust.
And I know that eachyear,actually, there is a literally competition among different colleges for thosekids, for those young people tocompare, which colleges summer vacation islonger.
So thisyear,obviously, the winner in Beijing is pickinguniversity.
Soyeah, young people in thatcollege, they've got 78 days summer vacation from late June to September8th.
Well,well, that'sinteresting.
Andamazing.Yeah, forstudents, they certainly enjoythat.
And when it comes to summerholiday, there's this common misunderstanding with thewording.
InChinese, we call it ShuJia, which means like the summerbreak.
And which is why a lot ofus, even as we werestudents, we tend to take it as a time when we relax and take a break and just enjoy our time while the temperature gets super hot to have outdooractivities.
But infact, bydesign, summerholiday, infact, was a time that people are supposedto, students are supposed tostudy.
I don't buythat.No, I don't buythat.
I think break is abreak.
And if we're talking about summer break two monthslong,yes, you can stay athome, do somehomework.
Yes, you can take extra curriculum classes and mastering some new skills that would give you the edge to stand in the front line among your classmates in the comingsemester.
But as a student who wantsthat, we want to goout, broaden ourhorizon, enjoy theview, go to some studytour, and that is what's supposed tohappen.
Speaking as someone who only has a two-year-old and do not have to think about the peer pressure among other classmates of mykid.
Butdefinitely, I get what you'resaying, Imean.
Also, it's supposed to happen during the summer holiday that people go on tours and studies on their own to supplement what they get from thecurriculum.
When everybody's going to school and undertaking the same kind ofcurriculum, the same kind ofcourses, you risk becoming one and thesame.
And so assuch, it's considered a supplement or a tradition that people go on summer holiday and pursue studies of theirown.
It is precisely this kind of mentality and this kind of competitive parents that encourage the designing of different types oftours, different types of studytours.
Infact, I know thatnowadays, a lot of different places have actually rode out to the special designedtours, allowing kids and allowing students to actually go out and visit places that are included in theirtextbooks.
According to C-Trips travelplatform, it launched a jump into the textbook travel customization feature resulting in 103 percent increase in intended orders in June compared toMay.
Among thedestinations, the attractions related to the sixth grade test and the fourth gradetest, five colorpond, are the mostpopular.
Soyes, like Lymingsaid, a lot of kids are going out but not only enjoyingthemselves, also gaining an edge in theirstudy.
Is that why I got soovercrowded?
Yesterday at the summer palace where I had to wait for 10 minutes before I was admitted into the park because there were loads and loads of people staying in line and trying to get entry into thepalace.
And not only for the gardens andparks, I know a lot of museums are also launching a sort of study tour products to targeting youngkids.
And also theirparents, forexample, the San Xing Duai Museum in Su-TuanProvince.
They are launching this special study tour to kids where they can just experience the work of archaeologists and also trying to maybe do some digging and also learn something about this archaeologysite.
And also maybe to sort of erase their interest in archaeology andhistory.
But I think that's a tricky thing for me because I think playing isplaying.
I don't really think studying or any kind of very educational purpose should be involved at the firstplace.
Butyeah, challengeme.
What do you saydigging?
Are they using a littletool?
A littletool. Maybe some likespecial, youknow, artificial archaeologicalsite.
You haven't launched by this museum and you can just experience thatwork.
You can call that studytour, but for me it's pure messing around playingkids.
Kids nowadays are enjoying a much richer and more interesting summerholidays.
Imean, for mostkids, if you're not graduating from middle school and getting into highschool, if you're not graduating from high school and getting ready and actually already had an admission fromuniversity, your summerholiday, your summer break is not going tobe, or was not that full of fun and entertainment for at least for mygeneration.
Right, we do have to do a lot of homework with a lot of paper tests we have todo.
Youdid? I personally would not disclose that information about my summerbreaks, but a lot of my classmates definitelydid.
And like I meansaid, they did use that very precious period of time to get an edge in front orbefore.
They're next tosemester, but I see nowadays more and more parents started to realize the importance of getting their kids around to seethings.
It might sound like acliche, but broadened their horizon could be very important aswell.
And maybe that is one of the reasons that a lot of these tourist sites are welcoming a lot of students and also familiesto,well, as the guests of theirattractions.
And I think not only forparents, but also for teachers andschools.
Imean, their mentality about how to let kids spend the whole summer vacation has beenchanged.
Because as yousaid, I remember every summervacation, there will just be a conference where meeting between ourselves and also ourteachers.
And every teacher will say somethinglike, youknow, this summer vacation is super important for you because you can do some preview works and get yourself prepared for the upcomingsemester.
Nobody doesthat. Nobody doesthat.
But it's really emphasized sort of like every summer and also for the wintervacation.
But, youknow, according to myresearch, I believe there has been some like change in mentality from those schools andteachers.
Because, youknow, there are also encouraging kidsto, youknow, get out of their home andto, youknow, spend more timeoutdoor.
And forexample, a primary school here in Sichuan district inBeijing, there are also encouraging kids to have like somehow like a city walk in thisBeijing.
Andalso, ofcourse, do some journals and paintings to record your whole sightseeing experience in thecity.
And that's also a very innovativehomework, I wouldsay, which also encouragedpeople, young kidsto, youknow, stay outof, to stay out of theirhome.
Do youthink,well, weare, this year we're experiencing a dramaticincrease, both in the number of ticket booking and also in hotel reservations and also perhaps tickets at very influential tourist spots and museums andparks.
And China's railway system is projected to handle 860 million passenger journeys over the summer vacationperiod,13% higher than lastyear.
And according to the online travel platform trip.com searches for domestic hotels and flights are up over20% year overyear.
And this is the year2024.
And when we look at the increase in the number of bookings and traveldata, we tend to refer back to a few years ago when tourism industry was hit rather gravely by the COVID-19 prevention andcontrol.
And do you think that has to do with the dramatic increase or do you think fundamentally parents and people's perspective about how their children should spend the summer holiday haschanged?
I think a little bit ofboth, because if we're taking to consideration the three year pandemicperiod, definitely a group ofkids, let's say they werethree, one the pandemic actuallyhit.
Now they're aroundsix, they're getting into primaryschool.
They'rehappy, free by sayingfree.
Imean, worry free period is about toend.
They don't even have to worry about theirhomework.
They didn't have to worry aboutanything, but that period is about toend.
And parents would definitely have this mentality of compensate them a little bit by taking them to relatively far awayplaces.
And the same group period goes to kids who were primarily in primaryschool.
And now they're getting into highschool.
And it is perhaps the very last summer vacation that they can thinkabout, not thinking about theirhomework, not thinking about their academic work because they're getting into highschool.
So with that kind of mentality inmind, parents would definitely want to take their kids to relatively far awayplaces, relatively expensivetours.
So that is onething. And in themeantime, I think Lee has touched upon the fact that schools and teachers are also encouraging kids to seemore, to jump into the textbooks in away.
I don't know how I feel aboutit.
Jump into thetextbook.
Yes, I don't know how I feel aboutit.
But definitely being able to enjoy the sight seen depicted in your textbook would definitely enhance your understanding of at least all the passages and of all the comparison between the sight and othersight.
And so with all those factors inplay, we do see more and more students and somehow not onlystudents, but also the parents taking their kids to differentplaces.
And that would contribute to the search in ticket booking and visiting differentplaces.
And this is a far cry from ourgeneration, I think as Newhorling has alluded earlier to and that is in ourgeneration, relatively fewer of us had the opportunity to travel rather far from where we live and to really have the experience to see the sceneries describing ancient poetry andtextbooks.
That kind of thing and nowadays it seems that people can afford to do that and they're also attaching a much greater importance tothat.
I remember being a kid and being considered as sort of an umbrella or a coat being consigned to my grandparents on summerholidays.
And that's what wedo. My parents almost never thought what I should be up to during summer holidays and all they needed was somebody to watch my back and that wasit.
But now to look at themchildren, even though they were really creating a lot of problems when I was looking to also enter the summerpalace.
Imean, they were really taking up our time and also making it very hard to getadmitted.
Butagain, I also on the otherhand, I feel like what a great time for them to be enjoying themselves and to travel to the Shichikungchao 7 Arches Bridge is a very literal translation of very famous landmark at the summerpalace.
I feel the kindof, youknow, as aparent, when I look at my son and I look at the opportunities that I'm able to give him to experience and toenjoy, I feel that the times have really movedon.
And now the Chinese people really have changedtremendously.
I'm both in the in the lifestyle and also in the way of thinking and also in the financialcapabilities.
In themeantime, we see all these tourist destinations are trying to embrace this opportunity of welcoming a lot of different tourists and students and they have wrote out customized tours and different activities to cater to the needs of theseyoung, not sospecial, but really eagertourists.
We see that not only are they rolling out different preferentialpolicies, forinstance, lastsummer, it was difficult to secure tickets to popular tourist attractions and museums in variousregions, actually affecting the touristexperience.
And we respond to this this summerShanghai,Suzhou, Beijing and other places promote the complete cancellation of real name reservationsystem, making sure that if kids want to save a spot for theirtraveling, they would be able to dothat.
And also a lot of different places have designed to customize the touring plans forstudents, not only the jumping into a textbookkinds, but also different kinds allowing students and actually kids to play different role in different areas and making sure that the experience is not onlyexclusive, but alsointeractive.
And these different policies are also encouraging kids togo.
And if you think about it thisyear, we see a lot of smart cities trying to make their name loud and clear on themap.
We see Zibo in the beginning of the year and then Tian Shui in the harbing forsure.
And it's super hot summerdays.
I am sure that for those places that can provide ice and snow special themetours, they would be very popular aswell.
So with the improvement inmentality, I call it improvement now because I envy those kids for being able to go out and spend money and traveling to differentplaces.
So I'm going to call itimprovement, improvement in mentality among parents as well as schools and also the effort of all these different touristdestinations.
It is no surprise to see the thriving of tourist markets theseyears.
Let's not forget collegegraduates.
Oh, graduation trim is definitely very verytrendy.
Imean, phenomenon in terms of tourism sector in summer of occasion because I think it's somehow like a once a time in yourlife.
Yeah, I'm a celebration gradation and usually you just go to different places with your friends and classmates to celebrate this very specialmoment.
I still remember in my gradationtrip.
I went to we actually we went to Yantai in Shandongprovince.
That's a coastal city with a group of my girlfriends and it's sort of like a veryvery.
We can't really call it as a very expensive world luxurious trip because we just have a very limited budget as a youngcollege.
Yes, and yet we still had the best time in our life because it somehow you celebrate this very milestone in your life altogether and it doesn't really matter where you go and how yougo.
It's just this destination shared with your friends and alsoyourself.
So andmeantime, as both of you have mentioned actually besides the change of mentality coming from this parents andfamilies, I think overall people are becoming more willing to spend money in terms of getting their trips because you do see a surge in terms of outboundtourism.
And infact, data from trip.com showed that graduates departing June saw a 2.5 field increase international hotel bookings compared to last year and also for those parents who are taking their kids to have a trip in during summervacation.
Actually, this year the per capita cost of domestic research toward products has declined by10% this summer compared to the pre pandemic level of2019.
But the per capita cost of such tours overseas has increased by about40% over2019.
So that's also showing that parents and also young people are more willing to go out of China to more popular destinations somehow like Southeast Asia and alsoBangkok,Tokyo,Puget, so so Singapore and something like that are very popular outbound tourism destinations for those people who need to spend a summer vacationhere.
China's Ministry of Commerce designated this year as the year for tourismpromotion, Ithink, which is why a lot of places across the country have come up with various activities to attract and promotetourism.
I think that all together about set 3.37,000 cultural and tourism and consumer activities have been organized across the country and many of them are offering tourismcoupons, consumptiondiscounts, that kind of thing to attractpeople.
So there is the competition among different destinations for potential travelers and tourists that may explain the decrease in the cost of travelingdomestically.
But on the otherhand,internationally, the demand is also increasing and we know that thanks to certain policies like visa-free agreements with a lot of countries in Southeast Asia and also one cited visa-free policy with regard toFrance, which is hosting the upcoming ParisOlympics.
So there is increasing demand to travel overseas aswell, I think that explains why the budget requirement for traveling overseas isincreasing.
Paris Olympics is onething, there is also the soccer EuropeanChampionships.
According toTrip.com, bookings to France have spiked by80% thissummer.
The borders for trips to Germany wereyear-old, 2024 as beingheld, have increased more than150% year onyear.
And the popularroutes, includingFrance,Italy,Switzerland,Netherlands,Belgium,Luxembourg,Germany, France are being verypopular.
In Tongchengtravel,meanwhile, has reported7% year-over-year rise in flight bookings toParis, from major Chinese cities and hotel bookings in Paris are up nearly150%year-over-year.
We get to see that a lot of people are using this opportunity to go traveloverseas, which is quite reasonable because for parents who do have a 5-day or 10-day and youleave, they want to take their kids to relatively far awayplaces, enjoy the world a littlebit.
And if you have 5 days plus the2-weekend,well, 4-weekenddays, you would think about going somewhere relatively faraway, like Xinjiang orXinjiang.
These are great places to visit duringsummertime.
And if you have a 10-dayholiday, hello overseastravel, I am going and it can be reallyfun.
And if you are taking their kids to these relatively far awayplaces, for many youngkids, actually summer holiday would be their very first outbond travelingexperience.
And I'm pretty sure many parents would say to their kids somethinglike, you studyEnglish, go talk to thisone, go talk to thatone, go order me abread, and that wouldhappen.
And also not compromise the experiencekids.
Practice your English and in the future write an email or actually leave a voice memo to round table that would be your second chance to practice yourEnglish.
Could be super funtoo. And those summer vacation is a peak periodhere, not only for those parents who just have to consume their annual leave because when your work involves outdooroperation, you also got this galvania or something like hot summer vacation for you toavoid.
Working in the hottest period of hotsummer, something like between July andAugust.
So that's also why you do see a surge or a peak of tourism here in Chinaparents, which is to take their kids outside to have atrip.
It's one thing to travel domestically and even if too far away places likeXinjiang, she is on here inChina.
We have very good internetconnection, we have very good internet facilities assuch.
We don't experience a lot of cultural shock and traveling can be rather convenient and can guarantee you that you can travel around without carryingcash.
Imean, most likely you can buy stuff and pay your bills with alipay or wheat chainpay.
But it's different when you're travelinginternationally.
There's also the element of cultural shockhere.
Other than your parents asking you to get warm water or hot water where you might have to strugglewith.
There are also different protocols and rules and regulations locally that you have to buy by or even certain social protocols that you have to watch outfor.
So it's important to do some research and what's the most important thing that people that are traveling overseas for the first time might need to watch outfor?
Well, in myopinion, make sure you'resafe.
Make sure you bring all of your value balls right next toyou.
And also when you're talking tostrangers, most strangers are friendly andnice.
But there is the possibility of them trying to get some money out ofyou.
So make sure you'revigilant.
And other thanthat, everything is just pitchy and fun and make sure you enjoyit.
