Young people who are careful with their budgets are bringing the May Day county tour to the forefront

This article explores how young people boosted county tourism during the May Day holiday through careful budgeting, reveals new consumption trends and the potential of the tourism market, and guides readers to understand the changes in tourism consumption behavior. I hope it will help you gain insight into market trends.

The county’s tourism market is booming again.

During the Qingming Festival that has passed and the upcoming May Day holiday, many people's travel destinations are county towns.

Data released by OTA platforms show that county tourism will be popular during the May Day holiday in 2024. According to Ctrip platform data, fourth-tier and below cities, especially county-level cities (county towns and county-level cities)

The tourism market has grown significantly, bringing in new volume. During the May Day holiday, hotel booking orders in the county market increased by 68% year-on-year, and scenic spot ticket orders increased by 151% year-on-year, which was higher than the national market.

Among them, Pingtan in Fujian, Yangshuo in Guangxi, Anji in Zhejiang, Wuyuan in Jiangxi, Chun'an in Zhejiang, Zhengding in Hebei, Jinghong in Yunnan, Deqing in Zhejiang, Shangri-La in Yunnan, and Dunhuang in Gansu are all popular county tourism destinations.

Why is county town tourism so popular? How do workers and students have fun in county towns?

"Ding Focus" talked with five young people who have traveled to county towns this year and found that one important reason why they flocked to county towns for tourism is that county towns are more cost-effective.

Some people choose to travel on a budget, traveling from Shanghai to Tonglu, Zhejiang, or from Guangzhou to Yangshuo, Guangxi. The cost of round-trip transportation plus accommodation and meals only costs around a thousand yuan per person.

Some people focus on "special forces-style tourism", spending two days to experience the rapeseed flowers all over the mountains in Wuyuan, Jiangxi, and to take a look at the oldest and tallest existing wooden pagoda in China - the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda in Shanxi.

The advantage of traveling to a county town is that it is cheap and has beautiful scenery, but the tourist reception capacity of different county towns varies. Some people have felt the convenience brought by the "whole-region tourism" in Wuyuan, Jiangxi. Many scenic spots are interconnected. Tourists need to show their tickets for the first time to enter the scenic spot, and can just swipe their ID cards for the next scenic spot. Some people are not used to it in Daxin, Guangxi, because there are few buses and it is inconvenient to order takeout.

The May Day tourist peak season is approaching, and they gave some suggestions for avoiding pitfalls: it is best to do enough homework before traveling to a county town, and choose the right weather for some beautiful sights; don't have too high expectations, and don't blindly follow the trend of checking in; although the overall cost of traveling to a county town is not high, you should also be careful about being ripped off.

1. Go to Wuyuan to see rapeseed flowers and be a "special forces soldier" for two days on the weekend

Zhao Ming | 32 years old, Beijing media industry

Since the beginning of spring this year, I have always wanted to go to the south, to a place with mountains and water, to feel the spring.

I went to Wuyuan in mid-March and saw the rapeseed flowers all over the mountains. The popularity of this small county was beyond my imagination.

I only have two days of weekend. It's too far from Beijing, so in order not to waste time on traffic, I take night trains both ways. I leave on Friday night, sleep overnight, and arrive the next morning; the return trip is on Sunday night, and I go directly to work the next morning after arriving.

After I boarded the train on Friday, I chatted with the people in the carriage and found that almost all the people in the carriage were going to Wuyuan. And many of them were like me, joining a tour group for a two-day weekend tour. I was very surprised and found it very interesting.

During the two days in Wuyuan, we were like special forces. We gathered at the station at 6 o'clock on the first morning, and then took a 4-hour bus to the mountains with the group. We had to solve breakfast and lunch on the bus by ourselves. Everyone brought their own bread and instant noodles. We checked in at three scenic spots on the first day, and we were too tired to move at night.

That night, the tour guide emphasized to us many times that there would be a lot of people at the Jiangling Scenic Area the next day, so we had to get up early and set off at 5:45 to catch the first shuttle bus before the scenic area opened at 7:00, otherwise we would have to queue.

We set off before dawn the next day. After getting on the bus, we looked at each other, sleepy-eyed, and slept all the way to the entrance of the scenic spot. Later, the tour guide said that a group that arrived 5 minutes later than us waited for the next shuttle bus for half an hour.

The two-day trip was very exhausting, but I was able to see rapeseed flowers all over the mountains at the end of spring. The white walls, black tiles, eaves and corners of the Hui-style buildings, which looked like ink paintings, left a deep impression on me.

Although most of the local attractions are in the mountains, they are well developed, and you can feel that the local government attaches great importance to the tourism industry. The locals told me that they are "all-region tourism" and many attractions are interconnected. After we bought the tickets for the attractions online, we only need to show the tickets for the first time to enter the scenic spot. We can just swipe our ID cards for the subsequent attractions.

In the past two days, apart from the round-trip transportation and the tour group fee, there were not many other expenses. I mainly enjoyed the natural scenery in the mountains and rarely went shopping. Most of the people selling goods in the scenic area were elderly people. Maybe the young people went to big cities.

During the Qingming Festival, I also went to the ancient city of Huizhou in She County, Anhui, and climbed Mount Huangshan. There were really too many people during the holidays, so I traveled by myself this time. I went to Hefei first, and then drove from Hefei. The original 4-hour drive took 6 and a half hours because of the traffic jam. I got off the highway in time to avoid the congested section and took the small road to save some time, otherwise it might take 7 or 8 hours.

Huizhou Ancient City has a deep historical heritage, but not many people. To my surprise, I walked around the entire ancient city and found few stores selling postcards, handicrafts and other products with local cultural characteristics. Instead, there were various brand stores that can be seen everywhere in fourth-tier small towns, selling everything, but they could not represent the local characteristics. The packaging of local tourism resources in the county is still very important.

There are so many people going to Huangshan that it took me 40 minutes to queue up to enter the scenic area at 8 o'clock in the morning, 20 minutes to queue up for the shuttle bus, and more than half an hour to wait for the cable car to go up the mountain. Later, it was crowded when going down the mountain. In the end, I didn't go to several check-in points. In the entire Huangshan scenic area, I didn't see any villagers setting up stalls spontaneously. It seems that everything is planned in a unified manner.

It is obvious that domestic tourism has become popular this year, especially in county towns. Some distinctive niche attractions are crowded. For those who do not pursue big cities and like to experience local characteristics, I think it is still good to visit small places.

2. Traveling to a small county town makes me feel like Liang Sicheng

Xiao Ma | Post-95s Beijing New Media Industry

I only traveled once this year, to a small county town, where I felt like Liang Sicheng.

I didn't have a holiday during the Qingming Festival, but after the holiday, I suddenly had an idea and took my friends to be "tourism special forces" for two days. I chose the relatively close Ying County in Shanxi. It has the oldest and tallest existing wooden tower in China, and is as famous as the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Eiffel Tower. For me who likes history and culture, it is very attractive.

This tower was built in the Liao Dynasty and has been preserved until now. Many people are fascinated by it. Liang Sicheng climbed to the top of the tower, which is about 20 stories high, despite the danger in order to draw a detailed blueprint for it. But now tourists are not allowed to climb it, and only the first floor is open. Even so, I walked around for more than an hour and felt like Liang Sicheng, staring at it infatuatedly.

After the tour, you should also eat a bowl of local jelly. There are many kinds of jelly, and they are delicious in any store. It is not similar to ice jelly, but more sticky and clumpy. However, you can't pick it up with chopsticks, you can only slurp it. Add vinegar and chili, it is very sour and spicy and appetizing.

After traveling to a small county town, my feeling was "after being in a cage for a long time, I can finally return to nature". My experience is, don't bring too much money.

The biggest expenses this time were accommodation and transportation. The round-trip high-speed rail ticket from Beijing to Datong was about 700 yuan. From Datong to Yingxian, I needed to take a taxi, which cost 150 yuan for more than 50 kilometers. The five-star hotel I stayed in cost 400 yuan a night, which was not too high. However, it would definitely be higher during holidays. The price of the hotel I stayed in during the May Day holiday had risen to more than 1,000 yuan a night.

Food and drink don't cost much at all. Two people order three or four dishes, and a meal costs about 80 yuan. A total of 300 to 500 yuan is enough for two days, which is much lower than the prices in first-tier cities. I gained 3 or 4 kilograms in two days during this trip. I like yellow rice jelly the most. I have to eat one for every meal. After returning to Beijing, I still look for it everywhere.

But there are limited things to do in a small county . After a day of sightseeing in Ying County, we found that there was nothing to see, so we spent the last day in Datong City. The trip cost us less than 2,000 yuan.

I think this trip is worth it. I feel that the biggest advantage of traveling to a small county is that it is cheap, but the disadvantage is transportation. There is no direct high-speed rail, so tourists can only go to nearby cities and then spend several hours driving or taking a bus to get there. In addition, the reception capacity of a small county is limited. The general permanent population is estimated to be only 300,000 or 400,000, and it cannot serve too many foreign tourists.

Recently, county town tourism has become popular. I think it has something to do with the change in people's consumption level, but part of the reason is that the traffic on social media platforms has boosted it and amplified it through local specialties. In addition, in the past two years, everyone has been bored and wants to go out to play. Many people who have been to big cities have turned their attention to small county towns out of novelty. If you don't want to follow the crowd during holidays, I would recommend you to go to a more niche city.

3. It’s inconvenient to order takeout or take a taxi, so I’m forced to slow down in the county town.

Huhu | 28 years old, freelance in Hangzhou

In the past two years, I have run a small business. When I feel stressed, I will find a weekday to go to a quiet place to relax for a few days. This year, county tourism is very popular, which is very suitable for people like me who consider the cost-effectiveness of travel and want to find a place to experience a slow pace.

Traveling to a county town requires more complicated routes than traveling to a popular tourist city. In March this year, I went to Daxin County, a secret place on the border of Guangxi. Since there are only a few fixed buses a day, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning to catch a 7:30 flight from Hangzhou to Nanning, then took a half-hour high-speed train from Nanning to Chongzuo, and finally took a 1.5-hour bus to Daxin County.

My trip took a total of 4 days, of which the air ticket cost more than 1,200 yuan, and the 3-night accommodation cost more than 1,100 yuan. Including the scenic spot tickets, meals, etc., the total cost was less than 4,000 yuan, which was very cost-effective.

Although I had prepared myself mentally before leaving, when I arrived there, I found that the county town was very different from the big tourist cities.

Its advantages are very obvious, with beautiful mountains and clear waters, fresh air, and endless wheat fields and layers of mountains when you open the curtains of your room. The image of a shepherd boy playing the flute on the back of a cow will automatically appear in your mind. I usually stay awake until two or three in the morning, but on the first day in Guangxi, I went to bed at ten o'clock in the evening.

However, there is basically no widespread commercialization around the county town. For example, there are only four or five food delivery stores on the food delivery platform, which makes it inconvenient to order food delivery . There are few local fast-food chain hotels, and most of them are homestays. The homestays are also polarized. The expensive ones cost several thousand yuan a night in the off-season. I stayed in a cheap homestay, and the sanitary conditions were not as good as those of chain hotels.

Although the small town is far away from the hustle and bustle of the city, its slow pace made it difficult for me to adapt at first.

For example, I went to Detian Waterfall. I thought I could spend a whole day there, but it took me just over two hours to finish. I wanted to go back to the hotel earlier, but I couldn't get a taxi. The return bus was scheduled to leave at 5:30 pm, and even if I changed the ticket, I could only leave an hour earlier. I was forced to slow down, wander around along the mountain trails, and finally take a nap on the bus.

After returning to the hotel, I found that there was a power outage in the village. My power bank and mobile phone were almost out of battery. I could only swing on the swing in the dark, then go back to the room to read an e-book. Finally, I fell asleep with unwashed hair wax on my head.

In April, I went to Pingtan County in Fujian again. The high-speed rail round trip cost more than 600 yuan, accommodation cost more than 2,500 yuan, and car rental cost 1,500 yuan, so I spent more than 4,000 yuan for four days. Compared with Daxin, Pingtan has better infrastructure and more places to eat, drink and have fun, but the pace is also slower.

County tourism has become popular in the past two years, which is inseparable from the promotion of social platforms.

In recent years, not only county towns, but even unknown small attractions may become internet celebrity check-in spots because of filters, and county town tourism has also begun to promote itself by taking advantage of this trend.

Of course, some counties can become popular because of their own differentiated characteristics. For example, Tianshui and Zibo are famous for their snacks, Pingtan for its sea views and windmills, and Chongzuo for its landscapes. In addition, many popular tourist cities are now highly homogenized, so these relatively niche counties have become popular.

However, I think it is enough to visit many county towns once. Four or five days is enough to visit all the attractions you should visit. If you stay for too long, you will get tired of the scenery. For county town tourism, I suggest not to have too high expectations, because you may get bored, you may not adapt to the pace, and you should not blindly follow the trend of checking in . For example, social media says that Pingtan’s "blue tears" are beautiful, but whether you can see them depends entirely on luck. If you have too high expectations or don’t do a good job of weather forecasting, you may be disappointed and ruin your travel mood.

4. The county towns around big cities are very cost-effective, but it is recommended to travel during off-peak hours

Lu Yang | 23-year-old student from Shanghai

It is said that April is the best time to go to Tonglu, Zhejiang. During this year's Qingming Festival holiday, my girlfriend and I decided to go to Tonglu to enjoy the mountains and rivers and see the scenery rated as the best travel destination in the world by National Geographic.

The biggest feeling is "traffic jam". We set off from Shanghai at 7am, and the journey that was supposed to take 3 hours took more than 8 hours. This was not the most "traffic jam". I didn't expect that the mountain road of "Tonglu Daqishan" was more congested than the highway. Because the bridge can only accommodate one person, the flow of people is very large, resulting in stop-and-go throughout the journey, and at least queuing for more than ten minutes to half an hour at a place.

However, Daqishan is worthy of the name of "Little Jiuzhaigou". The water is emerald green and clear, and you can clearly see the koi at the bottom of the water. If you don't come during the peak season, the scenery along the way is really beautiful. You can see the golden mountain in the sun when you look up, and listen to the whispers of the mountain stream when you look down.

The Maling Ancient Trail is built halfway up the mountain, with hillside valleys on one side and canals on the other. It is a very suitable route for hiking and is very friendly to beginners.

Tonglu is not big. We chose to stay in Luci Village, which has a relatively complete construction. It is recommended that people passing through here must go and experience the Fuchun Mountain and River scenery in "Fuchun Mountain Dwelling" up close. Because we were worried about the traffic jam on the way back, we did not go to attractions such as Yan Ziling Fishing Platform.

In general, Tonglu is worth a visit. The air in Tonglu is fresh after the rain, and it feels great to breathe in oxygen. If you depart from Shanghai, it only costs one thousand yuan per person for two days and one night.

If time permits, it is recommended to go to a place like Tonglu, which is so close to Shanghai and Hangzhou, on weekdays or in the off-season. The experience should be much better.

When we went there this time, we really felt the crowds during the holidays. Everywhere we looked were parents from Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai taking their children out for a walk. Later we learned that the most popular attraction, Daqishi, was visited by many people because Hangzhou has a Huimin Card and admission is free to this attraction.

County tourism is really popular this year, and I think the students have contributed greatly to this. This year, my girlfriend and I plan to travel to several small counties around Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, because we are worried that it will be difficult to take leave after we go to work, and our budget is limited. The prices in the county are relatively cheap, there are niche and unique attractions, and the scenery is beautiful and film-making, which is very suitable for us . In addition, the development of the county towns around Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai is relatively complete, and the safety is relatively guaranteed.

County travel is the most suitable way for us to accumulate travel "experience". In fact, many office workers and college students have the same demands for travel. Everyone wants to have fun, eat well, and spend less money in a limited time.

5. County tourism is cost-effective, but vigilance is also required

Chen Zui | 25 years old, Guangzhou IT industry

In order to avoid the crowds during the May Day holiday, my friend and I decided to travel in late April. Because we had a limited budget and time, and we were rice noodle lovers, we chose Yangshuo County, which is located in Guilin, Guangxi, as our budget destination.
The trip lasted three days and two nights. We started from Guangzhou and spent two days in Yangshuo. The first thing we did when we arrived was to eat a bowl of Guilin rice noodles and drink some pork bone soup to warm up our bodies.

We found out when we arrived that we were in the local rainy season. When we checked social media, we saw posts that discouraged us from going. We joked that at worst we could just order takeout and lie down in the B&B to rest. In the end, we were lucky. Although the weather forecast said it would rain every day, in reality, it usually rained at night. It was basically sunny or cloudy during the day, especially in the afternoon when it would be sunny for a while and the sky was foggy, which gave us a unique flavor of the misty rain over the Li River.

But the weather was not good, and we also had many regrets. The water level rose during the rainy season, and the river water was turbid and yellow, which really affected the viewing experience. In addition, the Yulong River was closed for rafting, so our wish to go boating on the river on a bamboo raft could not be realized, and we did not take pictures at the "20 Yuan RMB shooting location".

Our main goal for this trip to Yangshuo was to have a relaxing and casual experience. We didn't visit many attractions and chose relatively cheap accommodations. In the end, the average cost per person was 1,500 yuan.

Overall, I was quite satisfied, and it basically fits my impression of county tourism: natural landscapes are more worth experiencing than cultural landscapes. But the biggest feature of natural landscapes like Yangshuo landscapes is that sunny and rainy days are completely different experiences, so if you want to see the perfect natural landscape, it is very important to choose the right weather.

Don’t have too high expectations for the cultural landscape in the county . Even if there are many good reviews online and the photos are beautiful, the actual experience is often very ordinary. For example, many county towns must-visit xx street, which is basically full of shops selling specialties and promoting travel photography. If you don’t happen to pass by or live nearby, there is no need to go there specially.

When faced with an overly commercialized ancient town and the common solicitation of customers on the roadside, you should keep a calm mind and do not make a fuss even if you are overcharged or asked for tips.

As long as you don't buy anything particularly expensive, even if you get ripped off, you'll only be cheated out of a small amount of money. For example, a local snack that costs ten yuan may cost you twenty or thirty yuan.

Traveling to a county town requires a guide. For example, if I travel to a big city, I basically go wherever I want without making a guide. But if I travel to a county town, as long as I have time, I will make a full guide before departure, and I will also check while traveling. Moreover, I will never take illegal taxis outside the station, and I don’t even trust the taxi driver completely. I usually ignore overly enthusiastic people who try to chat me up.

Therefore, a trip to the county town is cost-effective, but you also need to be vigilant.

Author: Review of the Star Bruce Xiangyuan Editor: Xiangyuan

WeChat public account: Dingjiao (ID: dingjiaoone)