From the heart of Beijing to the edges of the global stage, you're at Roundtable.
I'm Niu Honglin.
Every year, the May Day holiday offers a snapshot of how people travel, have fun and how they consume in holiday mode.
In 2026, the data tells even more.
Tourism is no longer just about destinations, it's about experiences.
From concerts and sporting events to immersive performances, new forms of cultural consumption are reshaping how cities and counties attract visitors and how travelers define value.
For today's show, I'm joined by Fei, Fei and Yisheng.
Now pull up a chair and join the conversation.
It's early morning at a train station.
Crowds move quickly, suitcases rolling, tickets in hand.
This is very common during Chinese major holidays.
Yet what feels different for the just past May Day holiday is that more travelers are heading to a music festival in a small city, a village super league in a lakeside town or a live performance tucked inside a historic district.
What used to be a race to see more is becoming a search to feel more, and we're looking at more and more travelers going to different places during the five-day holiday.
So, in general, if we're painting a bigger picture, let's take a look at the data.
That cannot lie and the facts that we are observing these days.
Well, during the past five days of the May Day holiday, first of all, for example, on the railway system, China was basically buzzing with total passenger trips topping 100 million by May 5th, which is the final day of the five-day break.
And the National Railway operator said everything ran smoothly and safely despite this massive travel rush.
We're talking about more than 20 million passengers traveling on this system per day, for example on May the 4th, which is basically the peak day of this five-day break.
The system saw 20 point almost 4 million passengers, and with more people heading home.
On the next day, which is May the 5th, the travel rush picked up even more with 23 million passengers.
And that means more than 2,000 trains added just to keep things moving smoothly.
Yeah, even today, because today is the first official workday after this May Day holiday, right?
And the data from China's state railway group is showing that China's railways are expected to handle more than 18 million passengers trips today, which is the 6th of the May.
So as the final day of the whole May Day holiday travel period.
The National Railway Services have been in operation since the 29th of April.
So during which more than 140 million passenger trips have already been recorded as of yesterday.
So it is a huge trip and people are traveling on these trains and in early hours of today, additional passengers.
Overnight.
High speed trains are also continuing to run in high demand because people are having these kind of plans that they want to use the most of the holidays and maybe come back at the night of the last day.
Regardless of their work performance on the first work day.
So we know that major cities like Beijing Guangzhou Shanghai Chengdu, Shenzhen were among the hottest destinations on the last day of the holiday as well.
And we've answered the question of where they're going.
Later on, we'll be talking about what happened. have they done?
What have they enjoyed by seeing them in the majority of Chinese travelers during the past five days?
At the same time, when people are busy traveling to different places or staying in their own cities enjoying life, they are spending
So the consumption is also looking pretty good.
Yeah.
And also consumption is another set of number that we can use to sort of show our listeners how big.
This five day break is, for example, here in Beijing.
The city received almost 20 million tourist visits during the holiday, which is 5 more than last year.
And they spend a total revenue of 22 billion, which is more than 3 billion US dollars, which was also a 6 year-on-year increase.
So a lot of these tourists.
They will spend time in Beijing for the past five days to explore, for example.
There are more than 2000 culture and tourism activities featuring performances or scenic spot tours, for example, around the Forbidden City or Summer Palace.
And there are also other types of tours like popular science research tours or trendy fairs.
If we went around the city of Beijing during the holiday, you may run into, for example, a coffee fair, a book fair, just in a neighborhood park.
Or burger fair.
I'll talk about the burger fair a bit later.
I like the burger fair, so so basically, that's what people not only for you know, travelers from outside of the city, but also, you know, local residents.
They are exploring the city in their own ways.
I don't know about you, but for me, when I'm traveling, I don't visit movie theaters a lot because I get to do that in my own city.
But for this year, we are looking at a pretty good, very solid box office data.
Yeah, of course.
Whenever there is a holiday, I think there will be a period when people would like to go to cinemas with their families, with their friends, with their loved ones.
So It is a season that a lot of, I think, filmmakers will release new films.
And it is a season that people will pay attention to the box office of all of these movies.
And by 9 p.m. on May the 5th, total ticket sales hit 758 million yuan.
That's around 111 million US dollars.
And that's like over the surpassed last year's box office of 747 million and a little bit.
That's according to China Film Administration.
And another thing that we can see is that this year the ticket price were noticeably more affordable.
Because this May Day holiday the average ticket came in at around 36 yuan, down from around 40 yuan during the same period last year.
That's about a 10% or 8% drop.
So there are several reasons for the drop of these ticket prices.
One is that ticketing platforms they are offering a lot of discounts, rolling out lots of special deals.
And also local governments in places like Beijing and Hebei, have introduced subsidies and consumption vouchers to encourage people to go to the movies, movie theaters.
And this year Has even been labeled as the film economy promotion year because we have a lot of campaigns that you know you can traveling with the film in China and everything.
So they wrote out at least 12 billion yuan in movie going subsidies, and financial institutions and ticketing platforms have already redeemed more than 350 billion million yuan in discounts, helping drive nearly more than 29 billion yuan in box office revenue.
I think the lowering of ticket uh price started at least since uh the spring festival of this year, and the industry has realized that attracting more people into the cinema is more important than merely box office, and it paid off.
We see more turnout, or audience turnout.
We see people spending more time in cinema and, in return, finding out or rediscovering their love for enjoying movies in a theater where you can not only appreciate the films themselves, but also spend time with your friends and even attend movie related activities afterwards and talk to directors and probably actors as well.
So this movie theater culture is slowly forming here in China.
But besides that, the just past May Day holiday period is definitely a little bit more about traveling around.
And we are seeing new patterns and also new trends showing up during the past five days.
Yeah, first of all, on top of my head, I start to think about a few years ago we talked about a trend called the special force style travel.
Basically, you visit a place and and get as much as checklists off your list as possible.
So most of the time we saw videos of young people, for example, coming to Beijing.
Go to like 10 different spots within one day.
It's like you're playing a video game.
You have to be there.
It's a checkpoint.
And then you leave.
You didn't really care about...
Whether or not you're enjoying, really enjoying it.
Yeah.
But this year, I think people are turning to the other side of this trend is that they care more about depth.
For example, they want to soak into the local culture and way of life.
So, instead of checking into 10 different spots within Wednesday, within 24 hours, most of the people, especially young people, they are spending this past five days, for example, in one city or in that specific region.
To get as much of the local cultures, experience the food, maybe just take a stroll down the local park talking to a granny that's sunbathing in the park.
Or you know, just sipping some tea, for example in an alleyway in Chengdu, just relaxing, not thinking much, not doing much.
And apparently this is becoming a trend for this year's May Day holiday, which is about the experience.
We're not saying which one is better.
Of course you can do these kind of sports, special forces style traveling.
You can go to as many as As many spots that you want to go.
Like a challenge.
Yeah.
Come on, young people.
Get energetic enough to go to many places.
It is a good way to, I think, see the vibrancy of the city, of course.
And, of course, another style in recent years that.
People would like to experience the depth of the whole city so they may stay in one place for a little bit longer to have different aspects of culture and everything in history and background to understand the whole city.
And speaking of young people, I think another trend is really really I think I feel really jealous to them is that they are combining their school spring break with this May Day holiday.
To make it a super holiday is probably more than seven to eleven days because, um many like schools, they started the spring break before the mayday holiday so that they can combine the whole days and maybe um, have some off-peak itineraries and then experience the whole city, different price and maybe even lower prices when people are not starting the whole holiday things.
Yeah, like sort of avoiding the crowds, leaving your city one or two days before the May Day holiday and coming back a few days later than.
That not only is more economic-wise fun, but also you can get more experiences.
I have actually figures from different platforms to sort of prove that.
For example, 75 of hotel bookings made for this year's May Day holiday were for tourism and leisure.
And bookings for homestays of seven days or even longer than that, increased by over 40 year on year.
And there are also more orders when it comes to self-driving tours.
So it is also common for families.
For example, they take a high-speed train, for instance, go to a city and then rent a car, then drive around that city, go to different counties or different villages to get different experiences.
For example, when it comes to river tracing, fruit picking or mountain hiking.
These kind of activities increased more than 130 from a year earlier.
So when we're talking about experiences, I start to think about you know, about 10, 20 years ago.
When you go to one city, when you plan a five-day tour, most of the time is how much i can get from these five days.
For instance, If I plan to go to Beijing, maybe I can't just stay in Beijing.
I also need to go to Tianjin or Hebei, the nearby places, because this may be my only chance to come to Beijing.
And so why not check as many places? scenic spots as possible.
But now I think people are changing this mindset simply because if, for example, I didn't go to Forbidden Palace for this Beijing trip this year, I can come back later.
But now I want to spend more time around, for example, Summer Palace and to see that neighborhood and to experience, for example, a handful photo shoot that may take five or six hours.
And that is partly because previously, when the internet access is not that high Or the information on the internet is not that abundant,
You cannot really search, well, for anything you want on the internet.
When you are making a plan, you're mostly making your plan based on the information that you can find that are provided by, for example, travel agencies.
And not real travelers that have had the experience in the destinations that you're choosing.
But nowadays, with social media, i think the hashtag of my travel log or my travel diary kind of hashtag it's it's everywhere and it's so easy to find a plan that you enjoy to copy or to use as inspiration to design your own plan.
And that is why people's idea of enjoying a place is becoming more and more diverse and more and more in depth.
Because they got the information.
Previously, you cannot really know what a little eatery tucked in a busy neighborhood area.
But now it's easy to get that information, which is why people's demanding are getting higher.
But at the same time, we see the destinations.
We see different places, different cities and counties are also trying to meet that demand in their own ways.
Previously, I think a couple of years ago, when we talk about designing travel plan or travel package for visitors.
People would try to categorize them based on their gender, based on their age group.
We think young kids would enjoy petting an animal or playing in a kid's theme park.
We think the young people would enjoy certain things.
Middle-aged people might want to I don't know, fish for several hours.
So we planned the lake so that they can fish.
We designed the lake for fishing purposes.
And elder people, the silver-haired generation, might enjoy bird watching, or they would enjoy a hill that is not too hard to climb.
That kind way of categorizing is definitely still not wrong, but it's not precise enough.
And now we're looking at a new trend of these destinations rolling out different types of packages and different types of travel plan that you can choose based on your hobbies, based on whether or not you're a J person or a P person.
Would you like to plan or go with the flow?
Would you like to enjoy local food as much as you can?
And new activities are all around these themes.
For example, if I'm a foodie, I can search on Xiaohongshu, for instance, what would a foodie do in a city like Shantou?
And then different posts of similar foodies.
Eating six meals a day.
That's what a foodie do.
These are the different restaurants that you can find in Shantou, and enjoy yourself.
Embark a journey of discovering food in Shantou.
But when it comes to well, when it comes to these kind of tours, I don't think you can actually organize from an agency's perspective.
You can organize a similar tour like this because it's super personalized.
For example, I may enjoy this kind of dish, but the other friend of mine may want the other type of dish.
So it's more about getting customized your own travel plans.
And that's when social media like Xiahongshu can be very handy and helpful.
Yeah, these kind of itineraries are more personalized and customized.
I think that's also why now people are traveling to smaller cities rather than a lot of these hot spots in big cities.
Because these smaller cities are having that kind of moment that people from other provinces are also getting in.
Around 60 of travelers chose city hopping trips this year, visiting two or three destinations in one goal for maybe a five day holiday trip.
They can visit several cities in that province or several counties in that city so that they can experience different styles of sceneries or experiences.
And data from QNAR shows that people visited an average of 21 cities, while bookings for multi-city hotel stays in lesser-known destinations jumped 121.
And longer car rentals, which means three days or more, made up over 60% of bookings.
And the one-way rentals return car in just different places increased by 80%.
So that is, I think, showing that people are having plans in smaller cities, into different cities, and they have more sources and information to get a more personalized experience.
And I think that also thanks to these different regions, they are introducing different maybe packages or routes for the tourists to have a deeper experience and depth into that city or place.
And speaking of different campaigns, One campaign is, I think, inevitable in a lot of these holidays.
That is performance.
I think many cities during the May Day holiday, a lot of concerts, performances are going on.
One example is here in Beijing, right?
A concert by the rock band Mayday at Beijing National Stadium, or the Bird's Nest, attracted over 50000 attendees in one single day.
And they have several concerts in this whole period.
And in collaboration with the lead singers, Um, fashion brand.
So there is a limited time.
Restaurant were set up inside the venue, extending the concert experience into dining consumption.
And I remember I have several friends actually get in there.
It is quite, a very rare experience that you can get, because it is really hard to get one spot in that restaurant.
So you're probably going to share one table with strangers into that themed restaurant.
And other cities like Yuzhou.
In Shandong they have a super concert, which means the concert that includes many singers, one concert and partnered with over 50 hotels, more than 20 attractions and more than 100 businesses to form a whole ticket stub economy alliance, which means that when you book a ticket for that concert, you you have so many other options and vouchers when you're traveling in that one city.
What's so funny about this is that we see on these e-shopping platforms because many people are enjoying these kinds of concerts outdoor ones and super live ones.
They are also observing a surge in the sales of the kind of sofa that is portable.
Yeah, it's kind of like a balloon.
Air-pumped sofa.
We have that.
Really?
It is so convenient.
You can bring them to everywhere and all you need to use is just air and you hold it and you run a little bit.
It looks a little bit ridiculous, but it is really convenient and very comfortable when you're lying on it.
Yes, and a lot of people are enjoying this quite so much in their own cities or traveling to smaller cities with these kind of concerts going on.
So it's one example of the tourism plus kind of mold.
We talked about people wanted to enjoying things, enjoying the experience, having an in-depth experience when they're traveling.
So the travel plus the theme that you choose becomes this new model.
So definitely, travel plus performances, or travel plus, in this case, concert or music, is one thing, but travel plus other theme, for example sports related, is also another thing.
Yeah very, very popular.
This past five days yeah, just on my own WeChat moments, I've seen different super we know about.
We talked about Su Chao, the super league in Jiangsu, And then on my own WeChat moments, I saw different Super Leagues.
I saw Minchao Super League in Fujian province and the Mengchao Super League in Inner Mongolia and Yuechao Super League in Guangdong province.
So apparently this kind of tourism plus sports is proven, has been proven very successfully in jiangsu province, and so that other provinces and regions are also trying to sort of creating their own mode, not only to bring more life, more vitality to their local communities.
You know, you're rooting for your own city.
And what's more exciting than that?
But also at the same time, I think, when we are spoiled with choices.
When you are talking about the five day holiday, I think most people the first question pop into their head is where should I go?
We have over 2000 counties in China, thousands of different cities in China, of different cultures, of different landscapes, of different architectures.
Which one should I pick for this five-day?
And to give them this specific reason, it can be a concert.
It can be, for example, mayday is hosting a concert in beijing, so that's why where i will be, or it can be a sports about, for example, a guangdong super league or a super league, so that when you visit and watch that football matches, You also tour around the city, get the local food, book hotels, and that means economy for that city in particular.
And most importantly, the ticket holders can enjoy discounts when you're having these ticket stubs.
And I think that is a good way in no matter the exchange of um people uh tourists economy um, i think that is a good way for also people from different cities to go to another city to experience their own.
I think no, it's not only culture, but also the whole experience of when you're visiting.
Maybe you in the match you are rivalries, but in the city you are just friends, you can you, the welcoming passion that you can experience is the unique thing that you can get.
Well, it seems like it sounds like you know.
Cities or counties may enter into competition when it comes to the.
You are creating your own tourism, but what can be your identity?
What can be your brand when you are entering this market?
I think, it can be very diverse when you think about the culture and history behind each city.
For example, when I visited a city called Datong in Shanxi province a couple of years ago, we surprisingly found that in that city is closely linked to a piece of history In ancient China.
It's called the Kingdom of Liao.
And apparently that kingdom has its own cultures, has its own very unique architectures.
When we're talking about the towers they built, the pagodas they built are very distinct and unique.
And then throughout the past year, me and my family, when we were traveling around the northern part of China, we start to see different pagodas from the Liao Kingdom and we start to compare their differences.
And that's how we understand a particular type of architecture from ancient times and what that architecture represent.
And I think that can be very unique when it comes to reviving their own local cultures and also for us tourists to rediscover a piece of history, a piece of culture that you are not familiar or you have no idea existed before.
That's what holidays like this can do to a smaller, relatively hidden gem on the Chinese map.
That is, for relatively smaller cities and counties.
They can find a reason for people to put them on the map so that people can remember what the city or county is about.
But for major cities.
You see, major cities like Beijing and Shanghai and Harbin, for example, are also giving reasons for people to come, not only for the historical reasons, not only for this is a major city and you should visit, kind of reasons.
They are organizing different types of activities.
I mentioned in the very early stage of our conversation about the Burger Festival because I was very impressed.
It was in Beijing and at the Burger Festival, a lot of different types of burgers from different parts of China.
Of course.
Yeah, they have the Yunnan Guizhou Sour Soup Flavor Burger.
Oh, yeah.
They have the Xinjiang, I think it's a kind of cheese.
We call it nai pii in Chinese.
It's not super sour.
It's the kind of cheese that is very sweet and creamy.
And it's the cheese plus pineapple kind of huge burger sounds delicious, right.
And they also introduced the Tianjin style.
I don't even know Tianjin would like to combine shrimp with beef.
I don't know why, but it sounds very, very delicious.
And people enjoyed that burger festival a lot.
And at the same time in Shanghai, the 2026 Shanghai International Coffee Culture Festival drew over 600000 visitors in just three days, surpassing total attendance for the entire five-day holiday in the previous year.
Only three days, visitors have already surpassed the entire five-day compared to 2025.
And there have been nearly 300 brands participating.
And you have the local ones, very innovative local ones, as well as the major old or century-old brand inventing their own coffee.
And also, of course, it's Shanghai.
They've invited... different types of coffee from all around the world, not only here in China.
So all these kind of activities.
You do not really need to remember Shanghai as a city of coffee, though you might already do.
It's still they are doing new things.
So we see relatively smaller cities and counties rediscovery their culture and their identity, and bigger cities finding new things to do to attract new travelers, the younger generation, and these are all quite very interesting.
And on top of all that, we see the government playing a part in giving out, giving out to vultures and giving out subsidies so people can enjoy their lives in different places even more precisely.
And that's They're doing this precisely because when they issued, for example, in the province of Sichuan, when they issued 30 million yuan in cultural and tourism vouchers, that means in return they can stimulate in a ratio of 1 to 43, meaning every one yuan that they subsidized can stimulate 43 yuan in social consumption.
So there is a sound reason for these local governments that are trying to subsidize different themes of tourists, like spring outings, flower viewings or family entertainment, or even When it comes to education.
I think in a city called Zhuzhou in Hunan Province, they're launching a learn science through film program.
So they are offering free screenings of science related films for families and students.
And then they also invite a scientist to explain the detail and the background of that movie and then answering the students' questions,
And that can be translated into, for example, a meal in a nearby restaurant.
Or, you know, when it comes to parking, that is also what the government subsidies go into.
For example, free parking.
When it comes to shopping, you can also buy showing up some of the movie stops.
You may enjoy some of the discounts.
And another example would be the coffee festival that Honglin talked about.
They're also collaborating with movie theaters that by showing up your movie tickets, you can enjoy discounted drinks in a lot of coffee shops.
So by subsidizing this kind of activities, they are hoping to stimulate their own local economy.
And I also think that they are trying to keep this momentum in the long run, not only just for this five days.
Yeah, the thing is that it seems like they are giving out money to all of our tourists.
Of course, they are giving out money.
Which we totally support.
And the thing is that the initial government funding actually acted as that kind of seed capital.
And then they successfully attracting additional discounts and contributions from, let's say, banks and ota, online travel agency platforms and also merchants.
That's forming a coordinated amplification affected among government and businesses, which means that not only the government giving out vouchers and subsidies the platforms, the third party um businesses, they are also Giving out more money to attract more customers, Which means that more customers will go to that city and maybe even spend more money, and that is creating a whole, I think, Active and also positive cycle in the way that people can enjoy their time and maybe also create a better economy for the whole city.
I have to admit, I am super jealous of those who get the chance to go to different places, enjoy their lives, no matter if it's traveling to 10 different cities in these five days or staying in just one little county, having a little bit of parallel type of staying in.
That is, the life i am spending in this county is parallel to the life i am spending in my city as well.
I don't really care about going or checking in to different destinations, i only want to, you know, immerse myself in the vibe of this new place that I'm spending my five days in, no matter which type.
I'm super jealous.
But I have to admit, I had a really good time in Beijing as well.
Because Locally, people are also spending money, spending their time in the other type of activities.
So besides traveling around, what are some other things that people are doing?
Or in another way, what are some other trends we observed during the just past May Day holiday?
Well, first of all, stay in is, I think, on the top of list for many many, not tourists, but visitors are not re, not only visitors, but residents in China.
I mean, the Americano on a holiday morning tastes completely different to the one you drink beside your coffee at your office desk.
But when it comes to other trends, first of all, I think movie can still continue to be a booster to a lot of these travel plans, because even for us staying in our own city, we may want to go to a movie that can translate into a whole day of experiences.
For example, you check into a new shopping mall, you explore a neighboring park or you join into another tour that's linked to that particular movie, for example in Beijing's Universal.
Very interestingly, They launched a Chang'an-themed restaurant in collaboration with the 2023 film Chang'an, which is Chang'an Sanwanli, 30000 miles from Chang'an where, while you eat, after enjoying your time in Beijing Universal, you can enjoy the meal and enjoy the town-style performances, with characters like Li Bai citing their poems alongside your delicious meal.
So that's one example that what people are doing basically over the past five days.
Yeah.
And also in this season's I mean the May Day holiday season's new film is also introducing the routes for tourists to go in there.
One movie is called Dear You or in Chinese 给阿嬷的情书.
Oh, that's very popular these days, by the way.
And they have a really good reputation on the quality of the film.
And the name directly translated into...
Actually, in English is the love letter to grandmother.
So this movie also inspire theme travel routes such as travel shantou, which is the place in the film with grandma, integrating film locations and also boosting local consumption.
People are traveling to the same destinations in the film.
And I think that is a place that can give people and also moviegoers that really that kind of sensation that you can feel and better understand the whole plots and stories in the movie.
And I think that is why I think the meaning of traveling with the film is so important, that we can have a better experience and understanding and a deep resonance with the film.
And another trend I observed is that we mentioned earlier that people wanted to travel, but they focus on the experience more than just destinations.
And focusing on experience is not only the character that you can observe when it comes to traveling.
When it comes to people's hobbies, it's the same thing.
Now, a lot of young people here in China would choose their hobbies based on the experience they get while they are enjoying their hobbies.
For example, a lot of people like to keep a diary, but in the sense that they buy a lot of stickers and they draw a lot of pictures to decorate their hobbies.
They call it 手帐, your handmade diary, or you're keeping a bill, but it's more about decorating it.
And because of that trend we see a lot of different places, including Harbin, for example, wrote out a five-day handmade material related or themed related pop-up market.
And that market has also attracted more than 80 different types of stalls.
The stalls would, So would sell their own stickers, their own handmade material, beautiful papers and tapes, so that people with this interest can better enjoy their hobby while they're doing or they're decorating their diary.
And it's. super popular.
It got a lot, a lot of traffic, not only in real days, but also on social media.
So I guess in this day and age, no matter if you're staying in or if you're traveling around to bigger major cities or to little hidden gems on the map, little counties, you can always have a really good time.
So for those of you who are listening, please let us know where did you go and what has been the favorite experience you had during the just past May Day holiday.
