Local, short-distance, cultural vibes tours lead China’s Mid-Autumn Holiday travel

China's Mid-Autumn Festival travel market remained stable this year, with tourists favoring local and short-distance trips blending travel with festive reunions and rich cultural experience, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

The Mid-Autumn Festival, one of the most important festivals in Chinese culture, is celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese lunar calendar and dates back for more than a millennium. As a festival in honor of the moon and harvest, families reunite on the occasion to admire the bright full moon, light lanterns and share the holiday pastry of mooncakes.

Local getaways and short trips were particularly popular during the holiday, with Chinese-style night tours which allow tourists to enjoy the full moon with their families, emerging as a major trend.

These night excursions, featuring moonlit boat cruises, bonfire parties, performances showcasing intangible cultural heritage (ICH), and outdoor concerts, provided visitors with a rich and immersive cultural experience while also becoming a key highlight for promoting local culture and stimulating holiday consumption.

Data from online travel platforms showed a 77 percent surge in searches related to night tours of ancient towns and gardens, while searches for night boat cruises increased by 42 percent.

"ICH performances boast deep cultural significance and unique artistic appeal, while concerts create an immersive experience that emotionally resonates with visitors. The growing trend of tourists dressing in traditional costumes for scenic photoshoots has also taken off, allowing them to express their individuality in creative ways," said Wang Jinwei, a professor at the School of Tourism Sciences of the Beijing International Studies University.

Following the summer vacation's longer and more demanding trips, and ahead of the week-long National Day holiday from Oct 1 to Oct 7, most people used the shorter Mid-Autumn Festival break for time with family and recharge.

The three-hour high-speed rail networks, where travelers can move between cities within three hours — such as the network connecting east China's Jiangsu Province, Zhejiang Province, and Shanghai, or those linking Guangzhou City and Shenzhen City in south China, Chengdu City and Chongqing Municipality in southwest China — saw particularly frequent movement.

Self-driving trips, or combining high-speed rail with car rentals, remained popular among travelers moving between cities within a province or across neighboring provinces.

"As travel expectations rise, more tourists are seeking relaxed and comfortable travel options, as seen during this Mid-Autumn Festival," Wang added.

Local, short-distance, cultural vibes tours lead China’s Mid-Autumn Holiday travel

China's development has never been a "threat" to anyone but the source of growth advancing common development of all countries, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a regular press conference in Beijing on Friday.

Some Western media and think tanks are peddling so-called "China Shock 2.0," saying that "China is achieving fast development in high-tech sectors such as renewable energy and AI and relies on foreign markets to absorb its overcapacity, thus reducing the market share of developed countries and sending more serious shock waves to the global economy compared with the era of traditional manufacture industry," while there are foreign commentators saying that the "China Shock 2.0" argument ignores the genuine innovation occurring within the Chinese industrial ecosystem and that Chinese export is the exact booster of the global economy that is needed in the turbulent period and more indispensable than ever.

Commenting on that, Lin said: "From the world's factory to the world's market and innovation powerhouse, China's development is achieved through strong performance driven by innovation and brings tangible cooperation opportunities and space to the world. High-quality Chinese products represented by the 'old three' of textiles, furniture and home appliances have stabilized the global industrial and supply chain, lowered the living cost of global consumers and eased the inflationary pressure worldwide. China's green production capacity represented by the 'new three' of electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels has bridged the gap between supply and demand in global green development and bolstered the global energy transition and low-carbon development. Moreover, China's high-tech products represented by the 'new new three' of robots, AI and innovative drugs have broken high-tech barriers and monopoly and enabled people in more countries to access affordable new technologies," said the spokesman.

"Openness and cooperation bring about progress and win-win result. China's development has never been a 'threat' to anyone but the source of growth advancing common development of all countries. What really creates 'shocks' to the world has never been the innovation of Chinese companies and efficiency of Chinese industrial capacity, but protectionist moves of setting up barriers, decoupling and severing industrial and supply chains. China will stay committed to high-standard opening up, defend the multilateral trading system and provide more certainty and new impetus to the world economy with its own steady development," said Lin.

China's development never a threat: FM spokesman