Both long-distance holiday travel and local leisure activities were heating up during the May Day holiday, fueling a boom in one-stop consumption of food, accommodation and entertainment.
According to ByteDance's Douyin Life Services, during the holiday, group-buying sales on the platform for hotels and guesthouses surged 86 percent year-on-year, dine-in orders for local cuisine rose 61 percent and family meal group purchases, driven by parent-child travel, increased 49 percent year-on-year.
Data showed that travelers liked to sample regional dishes during their travels, such as Cantonese chicken soup in Guangdong province, Shacha noodles in Fujian province and Peking duck in Beijing.
Experience-oriented consumption featuring intangible cultural heritage has become a major trend, with more consumers pursuing travel experiences that integrate deep immersion and cultural identity. Douyin's group-buying bookings related to museums more than doubled over the May Day holiday month-on-month, while group-buying of products linked to intangible cultural heritage rose 56 percent month-on-month.
In the city group-buying consumption power ranking, Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu in Sichuan province, Shenzhen and Guangzhou in Guangdong province, and Zhengzhou in Henan province were among the top nationwide over the holiday.
Sports-themed travel has also emerged as a new growth driver. Four regional tournaments — the city soccer leagues in Jiangsu, Fujian, Jiangxi and Hubei provinces — sparked a regional boom in cultural and tourism consumption.
Local and regional getaways have also grown more popular among consumers. During the holiday, Douyin group-buying sales of outdoor activities such as camping and fishing rose 76 percent and 59 percent year-on-year respectively, while purchases of tickets for tennis courts and swimming pools more than doubled year-on-year. Movie ticket sales surged 91 percent month-on-month, shopping mall vouchers jumped 83 percent, and shopping mall consumption rose 72 percent month-on-month.
Third-tier and smaller cities have become a major choice for May Day holiday travel, with their unique local experiences and cost-effectiveness.
