BEIJING: During the May Day holiday, 33-year-old Dou Xin and several other young travelers joined a guided tour tracing the footsteps of Li Bai, a poet whose brilliance illuminated the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and beyond.
They visited historical sites and trod along cliffside plank roads in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, experiencing firsthand how Li Bai’s journey shaped both his character and his poetic style.
Such a deep dive into Chinese history and culture resonates with a growing number of today’s young people, who are increasingly flocking to ancient ruins, silent tombs and traditional villages.
As their cultural confidence grows, these young people want to reach out and touch the past, searching for inspiration, identity and a sense of wonder.
This trend was clearly visible during the 2026 May Day holiday travel period. Data from travel platform Qunar shows that the sharpest increases in hotel bookings were recorded in small cities with rich cultural heritage.
Hotel bookings in Sichuan’s Luzhou, a city renowned for its ancient towns and local cuisine, jumped 5.3-fold year on year, while Zhongshan, a city in south China’s Guangdong Province famous for its historic figures and local culture, saw a 4.3-fold increase.
Immersive cultural experiences, such as picking tea leaves in plantations, making traditional lanterns in ancient towns and joining poetry study tours, have become popular holiday choices among young travelers.
Meanwhile, families with children prefer visiting historical sites and spending time in museums.
Riding this wave of growing enthusiasm, local authorities across the country are digging deeper into heritage sites to create engaging cultural journeys.
Take ancient villages in Guizhou Province, southwest China, as an example. Visitors to these villages can watch Miao ethnic dances, try their hand at crafting delicate bamboo instruments alongside intangible cultural heritage artisans, or spend the whole day viewing martial arts contests.
In central China’s Henan Province, meanwhile, Millennium City Park in Kaifeng offers a chance to stroll through this Song Dynasty (960-1127) capital, which has been brought back to life. At the Luoyang Museum of Ancient Tombs, also in Henan, visitors can dress in traditional Hanfu, join “time-traveling” guides who seem to have stepped out of the past, and learn about ancient burial culture via interactive puzzle-solving games.
Such surging demand hasn’t gone unnoticed by China’s travel agency industry. In recent years, travel agencies dedicated to cultural heritage tours have been popping up as a result. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
