BEIJING: The Spring Festival, or Chinese New Year, is typically a time for family reunions and visits with friends. However, this year Ren Jun and his family decided to celebrate it in a different way.
They set off on an adventure across northwest China, exploring ancient Buddhist caves in the mountains, discovering the secrets of temples, and even stepping into a 2,000-year-old underground tomb in the heart of the Gobi Desert.
“We’re from the south, and our daughter’s really into the culture of the northwestern region, so we thought it’d be a great idea to come check it out during this long break,” Ren said.
In recent years, driven by a growing interest in traditional Chinese culture and greater consumption power, an increasing number of people have been choosing to spend the Spring Festival holiday exploring the country’s splendid cultural wonders.
The Spring Festival, the most important festival in China, fell on Jan. 29 this year, with an eight-day public holiday break running from Jan. 28 to Feb. 4.
During the 40-day travel rush surrounding the holiday, China is once again experiencing the world’s largest annual migration, with tourism accounting for a significant share of this travel surge.
Since Jan. 1, flight bookings to destinations known for their cultural heritage, such as the cities of Datong, Yangzhou, Quanzhou and Jingdezhen, have doubled compared to last year, according to data from Meituan Travel.
By the second day of the holiday, tickets for major attractions like the Palace Museum in Beijing were already sold out for the entire holiday, while the Emperor Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum in Xi’an in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province had only a few remaining tickets for the last three days of this holiday.
Fueled by rising demand for more immersive travel experiences, travel agencies are offering group tours led by scholars who provide expert guidance during the journey.
Ren’s tour group was led by Xing Yaolong, a scholar with the Chinese Association of Dunhuang and Turfan Studies. –Agencies
