On July 1, the 62-day 2023 National railway summer transportation was launched. China National Railway Group Co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as China Railway Group) revealed that during the summer rush, the country's railways are expected to send 760 million passengers, a significant increase over the same period in 2019.
The tourism market is ushering in a new peak season. According to data from the FlightAI market insight platform, the current summer domestic flight volume has exceeded nearly 20% in 2019, and outbound flights have recovered to more than 50% of the level before the epidemic. In many third-party booking platforms, the search heat of domestic and foreign air tickets in the summer vacation exceeded the level of the same period in 2019; Air ticket prices have increased over the same period last year and May Day this year.
Many OTAs expect that this year's summer travel market has shown some obvious trends, such as parent-child travel and summer travel have become popular choices, and long-term travel has dominated the market. OTA booking data show that this summer, the proportion of long-term domestic travel accounted for 61%; Parent-child travel accounted for 58% of the total. The data center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has preliminatively judged that this summer tourism may achieve a market share of 27-30% for the whole year.
Source: Yangcheng Evening News
The popularity of air tickets has increased by 130% year-on-year
Due to the strong demand for summer travel, a number of OTA data revealed that the average price of summer air tickets will remain high. Ctrip data show that as of June 28, the average price of one-way domestic tickets including tax during the summer vacation was 1088 yuan, an increase of nearly 20% over the "May Day" period, and the search heat increased by 130% compared to 2022. At present, the average price of air tickets to Xishuangbanna in the summer vacation is 1134 yuan, an increase of 51% over the same period in 2019, and the booking volume exceeds 134% over the same period in 2019, with the price increase and order increase ranking at the forefront.
According to the same travel data, the average domestic ticket price in the summer of 2023 increased by about 32% compared with the same period in 2022, and increased by about 5% compared with the same period in 2019. And in July 6-20, August 2-20 before and after, will usher in two civil aviation summer passenger flow peak. Some airlines have increased their summer transport to fully prepare for the upcoming summer holiday. China Southern Airlines plans to fly more than 12,000 extra flights between June 20 and October 10, bringing the total number of flights to more than 250,000.
"Early not late", many tourists have a strong desire to book tickets in advance, and the amount of tickets booked in advance has increased significantly compared with the same period. The proportion of parents and students who book tickets more than 7 days in advance in summer vacation is 24.9% and 18.7% respectively, both higher than the same period last year.
Industry insiders said that from the perspective of domestic capacity growth and fare levels, the trough during the epidemic has been basically filled, and the positive trend of passenger travel during the "May Day" is expected to continue, while international travel is still in a stage of recovery, and it still takes some time to really return to the peak.
Faced with high air fares, some tourists are "discouraged" and choose to travel by rail instead. Zhou Ruolin (a pseudonym) told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter, "I intend to travel to Xiamen in the summer, and the air ticket is more than 1,300, which is too expensive, so I still bought a high-speed rail ticket, directly saving half the price." Although it takes six hours more on the road, high-speed rail is more cost-effective."
The National Railway Group expects that from July 1 to August 31, the national railway is expected to send 760 million passengers, and the average daily number of passengers is more than 12 million, which is a significant increase compared with the same period in 2019. In order to cope with such a large passenger flow, the National Railway Group has adjusted a new train operation diagram, the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity railway and Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong high-speed railway to expand the capacity, open more high-speed trains in and out of the northeast, the western railway network to improve the quality of operation, the general speed passenger train running time compression, tourist train operating line comprehensive adjustment, railway passenger capacity to achieve new improvements.
The National Railway Group said that on this basis, during the summer season, it will also increase the capacity of popular directions and major tourist cities, and arrange the opening of 148 temporary passenger trains across the Railway Bureau Group company, including 78 bullet trains. At the same time, according to changes in passenger flow, more short-distance passenger trains can be flexibly opened at any time, and passenger seats can be effectively increased by means of EMU reconnection operation and addition of carriages on general speed passenger trains.
Parent-child visitors accounted for more than half of the visits
With the school holidays, primary and secondary school students and parents devote a lot of time to summer travel. Parent-child travel has become the main force of the summer tourism market. According to the data analysis of Qunar, the booking volume of parent-child tour products shows a rapid growth trend. People aged 34-43 and under 18 accounted for the largest proportion of the booking crowd, and users in these two age groups led to the growth of orders for family travel products.
The proportion of parent-child travel has gradually increased, and has ushered in the first wave of travel peak during the Dragon Boat Festival. The proportion of summer parent-child tour product orders on Qunar platform is nearly 40%, an increase of 1.6 times compared with 2019; At present, among the summer vacation users who have booked in Tuniu, the parent-child tour accounted for 58%.
In addition, this year's summer vacation users travel distance, travel days growth trend is significant, many parents expressed hope to take advantage of the summer to accompany their children. Tuniu data show that in terms of travel days, users who choose 5-6 days of travel accounted for 28% of the total holiday travel, followed by 3-4 days and 7-8 days of travel, accounting for 25% and 17% respectively. In addition, more than 8% of users chose to travel for more than 10 days.
At the same time, the destination of parent-child travel has also received widespread attention. Seaside Tours, frontier Tours and gourmet Tours have become key elements in attracting tourists. Coastal cities such as Qingdao, Weihai, Xiamen and Haikou, as well as regions with regional characteristics such as Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai and Yunnan, are popular destinations. At the same time, Chengdu, Changsha, Wuhan, Xi 'an and Chongqing are also favored by tourists for their convenient transportation, abundant food and low consumption.
In addition to parent-child Tours, the popularity of summer study Tours is also increasing. According to the data of Where to Go, the sales of research tour products in June have increased by four times compared with the previous month, the summer indoor museum ticket bookings have increased by 324% compared with the same period last month, and the national aquarium ticket bookings have increased by 412% compared with the same period last month. Through multiple immersive experiences such as cultural lectures, popular science experiments, and nature classes, the study tour allows children to fully feel the beauty of nature, science, and humanity during the travel process, and is favored by parents and families of preschool and low school age children.
High temperature city overall travel willingness is strong
According to the summer tourism market survey data conducted by the data center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in China's traditional high-temperature cities, the overall travel intention of traditional high-temperature cities in the third quarter of this year is more than 90%, reaching 94.6%. Users in Shanghai, Nanjing, Beijing, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Chengdu and other places have strong enthusiasm for travel, and the number of trips is among the best.
Thanks to the El Nino phenomenon, this year has been hotter globally than 2022. With frequent high temperatures in summer, cooling has become the primary choice of many tourists, and the demand for summer tourism has shown a significant growth trend in the summer tourism market. As the temperature rises, how do you avoid the heat? This year, more people chose the most retro way to enjoy the cool "in the mountains". People want to travel to escape the heat and find cool and natural places.
Rural summer vacation can not only enjoy the pleasant cool climate, but also relatively avoid the tourist peak, get a better tourism experience. Therefore, the rural summer tour in recent years, bright spots frequently appear. For example, the average summer temperature of Shanbao village, Jiuba Town, Tongzi County, Guizhou province, is only 20℃, which attracts many foreign tourists to come to cool off in summer every year, of which Chongqing tourists account for more than 90%. In the summer of 2022, the rural summer vacation market in the region continues to be hot, and the villages where only more than 4,000 villagers live have flooded with 60,000 summer tourists, and receiving summer tourists has become a new way for local economic development and people's income.
Ctrip platform data show that during the Dragon Boat Festival this year, rural tour hotels and homestay orders across the country increased by more than 170 percent year-on-year. Among them, the number of post-90s and post-00s accounted for more than 50%, and it is expected that the summer will usher in more bright data growth.
Outbound travel is also an important part of the summer tourism market, and the demand for outbound travel has picked up this summer. Popular destinations in Europe, Southeast Asia and Australia are favored by travelers. Historical cities such as Paris, London and Rome attract visitors interested in art and history. Asian countries such as Thailand, Japan and Singapore catch the eye of tourists with their food, shopping and natural beauty.
Citic Securities pointed out that the Dragon Boat Festival holiday domestic travel/tourism income recovered to 112.8%/94.9% of the same period in 2019 according to the comparable caliber, in line with expectations, and the tourist number continued to boom. Per capita consumption recovered to 85.9% of the same period in 2019, and there is still much room for recovery. Although the high temperature weather occurred in many places, the holiday passenger flow performance is still a bright spot, and the first-line natural scenic spots have a strong performance, and the upcoming summer season is worth looking forward to.
