China Tourism Academy: 2023 Summer Tourism Market Monitoring

During this summer (June to August), the tourism market continued to recover faster, with most destinations receiving the highest number of tourists in history. Based on monitoring data such as tourism product prices, OTA orders, passenger flow big data, and tourist spending surveys, it is estimated that the number of domestic tourists nationwide during the summer reached 1.839 billion, and domestic tourism revenue reached 1.21 trillion yuan.

The market heat continues to rise, and the tourism market has seen a phenomenon of "industry formats spreading to the downstream of the industrial chain and space spreading to remote destinations". The summer market opened steadily and rose. Data from the China National Railway Group showed that the average daily number of passenger trains operated by railways across the country during the summer increased by 18.9% year-on-year compared with 2019. Data from the Civil Aviation Administration showed that passenger traffic in July increased by 5.3% compared with the same period in 2019, setting a new record for monthly civil aviation passenger traffic. The industry boom has spread from upstream industries represented by transportation, accommodation, and catering to downstream industries represented by shopping and entertainment. The occupancy rate and settlement price of accommodation facilities in various places have risen. The average price of Beijing hotels on the Ctrip platform during the summer increased by about 50% compared with 2019. The tourism shopping and entertainment industries, which were relatively lagging in the first half of the year, benefited from the favorable transmission of the market boom. The concert brought hundreds of millions of yuan in additional revenue to Xi'an, Haikou and other places. The distribution of passenger flow has spread from major source cities to many remote destinations. This summer, the proportion of tourist inflows to Northeast China, Southwest China, North China, as well as parts of Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang generally exceeded that before the epidemic.

The general increase in the prices of summer tourism products has become a key driving force for the growth of social consumption. The monitoring data of the research team showed that the average price of inbound air tickets in all provinces across the country (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) increased by 14.17% year-on-year, the average price of hotel rooms increased by 46.88% year-on-year, and the average price of scenic spot tickets increased by 4.63% year-on-year. Among them, the air ticket prices in Beijing, Shanghai, Ningxia and Qinghai led the year-on-year increase, the hotel room prices in Yunnan, Guizhou, Xinjiang, Tibet and Hainan increased significantly, and the scenic spot ticket prices in Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia increased relatively significantly.

Figure 2: Scenic spot tickets and hotel rooms in various provinces during the summer of 2023 compared with the same period last year

Average price difference

The demand for summer tourism is unprecedentedly strong, and high temperatures have driven tourists to go further and stay out longer. This summer, high temperatures across the country have the characteristics of "early appearance, wide impact, and long duration", and the demand for summer tourism has been accelerated. Beijing, Hebei, Henan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Anhui and other places rank among the top in the country in terms of cross-provincial travel, accounting for a total of 35.78%, a record high. Harbin, Changchun, Urumqi, Kunming and other regions with high latitudes and altitudes are popular destinations for summer tourism, with a high proportion of out-of-town tourists. The proportion of out-of-town tourists in some typical destinations in Tibet, Qinghai and Xinjiang provinces once exceeded 75%. When the weather is hot, people are more willing to stay longer in summer resorts to feel the coolness. The research team's big data monitoring shows that the time spent by tourists outside the country during the summer vacation has increased significantly, with a year-on-year increase of 36.77%.