Tourists visit Xi'an Bell and Drum Towers Museum in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, May 1, 2023. (Photo by Zou Jingyi/Xinhua)
BEIJING, May 5 -- During this year's May Day holiday, more and more Chinese tourists are adding destinations such as museums and art galleries to their itinerary, suggesting an upward trend in China's domestic cultural tourism sector.
A female surnamed Dong is among the country's traditional culture fanatics. She was in charge of arranging her family's tour from Langfang, north China's Hebei Province, to the Chinese capital of Beijing during the five-day holiday. The tour's highlights included visiting the signature Palace Museum dressed in ancient costumes and seeing the national treasures at the National Museum of China with their own eyes.
On the last day of the May Day holiday, Dong took her child to a niche museum in Beijing, the eastern suburbs exhibition hall of China Railway Museum.
They took photos with the abandoned station platforms and all kinds of locomotives, and her child enjoyed a small steam train ride while learning more about the history of China's railway development. Cuddling his favourite toy, a Transformer-like train man, the young boy felt fully satisfied by the time they departed for their journey home.
As the first May Day holiday after the country optimized its epidemic response measures, cultural tourist attractions, especially museums and art galleries, have become a hot new trend.
Local residents and tourists from afar shuttled between all kinds of museums, wandering in various exhibitions, busy watching rarities from all over the world and experiencing tangible and intangible cultural exchanges in ancient and modern times between home and abroad.
Data collected by multiple museums show that the number of visitors during the holiday rebounded above the pre-COVID level recorded during the same period of 2019. On the first day of the May Day holiday, the top 10 scenic spots in Beijing in terms of the visitor numbers included several cultural tourist attractions: Qianmen Street, the Summer Palace, Nanluogu Lane, the Temple of Heaven, the Beihai Park and the Old Summer Palace, or "Yuanmingyuan."
