With the pent-up demand for travel greatly unleashed, many cities in China have encountered the hustle and bustle of the tourism boom during the five-day May Day holiday. Jiangsu, one of China’s well-known provinces for its culture and tourism, became tourists’ preferred destination during the May Day holiday.

Statistics from the Ministry of Transport showed that China saw about 160 million tourist trips during the first three days of May Day holiday. Among the top ten most-visited scenic spots in the three days, Nanjing Confucius Temple Scenic Area and Nanjing Zhongshan Scenic Area ranked the second and the third.

Apart from those traditional tourism hot-spots, travelers this year also tended to visit some less-known places that combines features of traditional activities, research and experience, cultural fairs, rural tours, etc. Those were once little known became new tourist destinations, and some of them are even referred to as "emerging online celebrity cities."

Liu Yiran and Wang Danlu from Wuhan paid a visit to Nanjing Constitution Park on April 30, 2023. “We have wanted to visit this place long ago, since we saw it on Xiaohongshu, a popular social networking APP. It is not so crowded, but we can take many beautiful photos.” The girls have planned long for this visit to Nanjing, and they chose quite a few less-popular places as their tourist destinations to have an in-depth experience, such as Yuyuan Garden, Jiangxinzhou Island, and Mufushan Scenic Area.

As the tourism market is developing, Chinese travelers want more diverse and high-quality services and products, shifting their interests from mere sightseeing to a combination of sightseeing and relaxation, which is a new growth point, but it also means higher requirements for providers of tourism products and services.

Tourists have been fascinated by various themed activities like temple fair tours, intangible cultural heritage displays and others at scenic spots in every Jiangsu city.

As a crucial transportation hub, Nanjing South Railway Station has witnessed an accumulative passenger flow of 1.88 million from April 27 to May 2, up 2.1% from the same period in 2019. The scores of travelers estimated to make 240 million trips around the country during the five-day May Day holiday from April 29, a growth of around 104 percent compared with the same period in 2019, according to the China Tourism Academy.

Contact us at english@jschina.com.cn