More travelers are choosing to stay in ancient villages and learn intangible cultural heritage crafts during holidays rather than chase internet-famous check-in spots and artificial attractions, a new industry report reveals.
Online travel platform Fliggy released a report on Wednesday about travel trends during the seven-day National Day holiday, showing that visitors are increasingly drawn to authentic local experiences.
During the holiday, bookings for travel products featuring natural scenery and villages rose more than 40 percent year-on-year on the platform, with small cities such as Kashgar in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and Baise in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region emerging as representative destinations.
The number of users who booked ancient village-related products rose more than 90 percent year-on-year on Fliggy. For example, Dongbi village in Xiapu county, Fujian province and Luci village in Tonglu county, Zhejiang province, are not overcommercialized, allowing visitors to savor the joy of living like a local.
Bookings for intangible cultural heritage handicrafts and workshop tours doubled year-on-year. Learning to make Huizhou inksticks in Anhui, trying silver ornament forging in Guizhou, and experiencing bamboo weaving in Hainan are among the activities favored by younger travelers. Like ancient village tours, the appeal of workshop-based travel lies in the authenticity of craft skills handed down through generations.
Unlike traditional industrial tourism based on exhibition halls, tourists nowadays head straight to production floors to see how rockets are built, giant ships are welded, and soft drinks are bottled. Fliggy has launched industrial study tour products, and the report says the core appeal lies in the sense of awe and rare opportunity to enter places normally off-limits to the public.
Fliggy's ticket bookings for scenic areas featuring role play or immersive experiences rose 60 percent year-on-year. Non-player characters, or NPCs, more commonly known as performers at attractions such as the Wansuishan Martial Arts City theme park in Kaifeng, Henan, and Hengdian World Studios in Zhejiang, have turned visitors from spectators into participants.
Artificial intelligence is also becoming a travel companion. Data show that interactions with Fliggy Bangbang, the platform's AI-powered travel assistant, surged 158 percent month-on-month during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays. The report said that AI's ability to handle tasks before, during and after trips, including flight check-in and ticket refund or change services, also stood out.
