CHONGQING (CQNEWS) -- As the Dragon Boat Festival is drawing near, many travelers have already booked hotels and air tickets for their trips. Data from Qunar.com, Tujia, and other platforms find that Chongqing has ranked in the top ten Chinese tourist destinations for accommodation bookings.

Beijing, Shanghai, Qingdao, Nanjing, Changsha, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Xi'an, Guangzhou, and Wuhan are the top ten tourist destinations with large booking numbers for accommodation, with Tianjin, Jiangxi’s Nanchang, Shandong’s Jinan, and Jiangsu’s Suzhou and Xuzhou showing a yearly increase of more than 50% in hotel bookings, according to the data provided by Qunar.com.

Bookings for urban guesthouses on the Tujia platform surged fourfold compared with the same period last year, with Beijing, Qingdao, Chengdu, Qinhuangdao, Chongqing, Xi'an, Changsha, Shanghai, Weihai, and Nanjing among China's top ten popular tourism destinations.

The Dragon Boat Festival, a significant folk festival in China, has been a holiday for all Chinese to commemorate customs and traditions, such as eating Zongzi (a traditional dish made of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves), tying five-color silk tread, drinking realgar wine, holding dragon boat racing, and mugwort leaves and calamus. Data from Qunar.com show that the searches for ‘dragon boat’ rose 136% compared to last week. As Guangdong is the hometown of dragon boat culture, Guangdong-related searches have grown rapidly, of which the searches for Foshan increased dramatically by nearly 30%. As of May 29, the searches for keywords ‘dragon boat’, ‘Dragon Boat Festival’, and Zongzi’ increased by 50% year-on-year, and the bookings for guesthouses during the upcoming Dragon Boat Festival showed year-on-year growth of 20% on the Tujia platform.

A good few scenic spots in Chongqing have prepared various folk custom activities to celebrate the traditional festival. For example, Mexin Wine Town and Fuling Cultural Center will jointly host Our Festival – Dragon Boat Festival 2024 Series. Leveraging on the enchanting natural scenery of wetlands of the Yangtze River tributaries, they will stage five major activities, including Zongzi Feast, Dry-land Dragon Boat Racing, Han-style Clothing Show, Dragon Horse Parade and Intangible Cultural Heritage Bazaar, in the hope that these activities will “promote the development of local ecology, culture, and tourism, and wake people up to the inheritance of our traditional culture”. (Translated by Yuki, Fathom Language Limited)