If you’re like us, keeping a close eye on Chinese travel trends, especially during holidays, you might have heard the term “reverse travel” (反向旅游) from last year. The trend mostly means travelling to unconventional destinations in provincial or rural areas, where people tend to travel from, hence the “reverse” part. However, these new destinations also have potential, such as local delicacies, sights or traditional architecture that can draw in young travellers. The trend, in a way, helped make cities like Zibo and Tianshui viral. This year, while “reverse travel” remains popular, a new trend has dethroned it as the topic trend this May Day in China: holiday stacking (拼好假).
Holiday stacking, or “bridging” holidays, means taking annual leave around public holidays to maximise the total holidaymaking period. Recent holidays, such as the Chinese New Year (CNY), Tomb-sweeping Day (Qingming) and the upcoming May Day holiday (1 to 5 May) have spurred several “pain points” from young professionals: the huge number of people at every travel destination and the dreaded “compensatory” workday, which means working at the weekend to compensate for lengthened public holidays. For example, this year people needed to work on Sunday, 27 April, in order to have a holiday that ends on 5 May.
Holiday stacking, in this sense, can solve both problems by making your holiday start earlier or end later to maximise travelling while others are not, and avoid the compensatory workday. In a DT Business Observer survey, the “holiday stacking” trend was ranked number one. 54.2% of participants would like to try it. “Reverse travel” ranks number 2 with 43.9%. Other trends include “citywalk” urban exploration (43.3%), “interest holiday” such as concerts, conventions, surfing and hiking (39.8%) and “city outskirts” travel (36.0%).
Holiday stacking is favoured by all participant age groups from post-80s (61.5%) to post-00s (49.5%) generations, while reverse travel interests mostly post-90s (48.5%) and post-95s (48.1%) generations. With inbound travel expected to surge and the “holiday stacking” trend making the holiday longer, the May Day holiday is expected to see another travel boom in China.
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