These consumption hotspots in the Yangtze River Delta are hot during this Mid-Autumn Festival. People from Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui love to go to Shanghai most during the holiday

As the Mid-Autumn Festival approaches, the tourism market will once again usher in a small peak.

This year's Mid-Autumn Festival holiday transportation period is from September 14 to September 18, a total of 5 days. It is estimated that the Yangtze River Delta Railway will transport more than 15 million passengers during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Shanghai Railway Station is expected to send more than 2.2 million passengers. The peak passenger flow will be on September 15, when 593,000 passengers were sent. The average daily passenger volume increased by 23.8% year-on-year compared with 2019.

According to OTA platform data, the prices of air tickets and hotels during this year's Mid-Autumn Festival holiday have dropped compared with last year, and are more cost-effective.

Ctrip data monitoring shows that the average price of domestic air tickets during the Mid-Autumn Festival, including tax, is about 770 yuan, which is about 25% lower than last year's Mid-Autumn Festival. Qunar data also shows that air tickets and hotel prices during the Mid-Autumn Festival have fallen back to the low season level, and popular destinations are about 40% lower than the National Day holiday.

According to data from Fliggy, bookings for domestic hotels, domestic car rentals, domestic tickets, etc. have all recorded double-digit growth compared to the same period in 2019, and the overall booking volume exceeded that of the Dragon Boat Festival holiday.

Unlike summer travel, where families are the main group of tourists, people born in the 1990s and 2000s account for nearly 40% of Mid-Autumn Festival orders.

On the Ctrip platform, Shanghai became the most popular domestic destination during the Mid-Autumn Festival, with travel orders increasing by 252% compared with the same period last year.

In addition to traditional popular scenic spots such as Disney, the "Top of the Pyramids: Ancient Egyptian Civilization Exhibition" launched by the Shanghai Museum is still popular after the summer vacation, attracting a large number of tourists. In addition, the Bank of Communications Yaoxue Ice and Snow World, which officially opened on September 6, entered the top three most popular scenic spots.

From museums to ice and snow tourism, Shanghai's cultural and tourism industry is constantly innovating, leaving tourists overwhelmed.

Nearly 50% of the orders for local tours during the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday were for local tours. The demand for short-distance tours in the entire Yangtze River Delta region was very strong. Where do people in the Yangtze River Delta region like to go? Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Suzhou, Hefei, Ningbo, Beijing, Wuxi, Changzhou, and Yangzhou all made it into the top ten popular destinations.

In addition, tourism orders in Suzhou, Hefei, Xuzhou and other places grew most significantly, increasing by 327%, 289% and 267% respectively compared with the same period last year.

These cities combine local tourism resources to launch activities such as Mid-Autumn Festival moon-watching and lantern festivals to attract tourists from all over the world.

Many garden attractions in Suzhou have launched moon-watching night tours, adding intangible cultural heritage fire pots, phoenix dances, Hanfu costumes, tea, and wishing bottles. Before the festival, searches for night tours of ancient town gardens in China increased by 77%.

Sunac Park in Hefei held a Mid-Autumn Festival Garden Party during the holidays, and the park became the most popular scenic spot in the area. In addition, Luogang Park in Hefei Garden Expo Park also launched a Mid-Autumn Festival Lantern Festival, which sold more than 10,000 tickets on short video platforms alone.

Eating mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional custom, but the topic of "mooncakes are not selling well this year" has appeared on online platforms.

The "2024 Mid-Autumn Festival Mooncake Industry Trends" report released by the China Baking Food and Sugar Products Industry Association in August predicts that this year's Mid-Autumn Festival mooncake production is expected to reach 300,000 tons and sales will be around 20 billion yuan. The overall production and sales will be basically the same or slightly decline, and the profit margin will also decline.

Traditional mooncakes are no longer popular due to their "too sweet and greasy" taste. However, the sales of fresh meat mooncakes, which are preferred in the Yangtze River Delta region, are still strong.

On the Pinduoduo platform, Cantonese-style mooncakes still account for half of the mooncake sales, followed by Suzhou-style mooncakes from the Yangtze River Delta region. In terms of consumer cities, Shanghai surpassed Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan and other cities to rank first in the sales list.

Data from Dingdong Maicai shows that as of a week before the Mid-Autumn Festival, fresh meat mooncakes still accounted for half of the sales in Shanghai, Suzhou, Nanjing, Hangzhou and other regions in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

In Shanghai, fresh meat mooncakes and other ready-made products are particularly popular. Taikang, Xinya, No. 1 Food, Guangmingcun and other time-honored brands have welcomed long queues of customers before the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Huang Renkang, executive chef of Xinya Cantonese Restaurant, said that the daily sales of freshly baked Suzhou-style mooncakes have exceeded 20,000 recently. In addition to the popular fresh meat and pickled pork flavors, the newly launched flavors of fermented rice wine-flavored fresh meat, curry beef, chewy black sesame and moss melon seeds are all selling well.

The Egg Mooncake launched by Taikang Food is also a new popular flavor recently. The mooncake crust is crispy when it is freshly baked and becomes soft after cooling, which is loved by young consumers.

The trend of low-sugar and low-fat healthy diets has also spread to the mooncake industry. According to iMedia Research, 86.8% of consumers are willing to buy healthy mooncakes such as low-sugar and low-fat ones. Vegetarian mooncakes from Shanghai Jade Buddha Temple are very popular, and the newly launched mushroom mooncakes were sold out as soon as they were launched online.

In addition to mooncakes, sales of products related to traditional Mid-Autumn Festival customs also increased.

Making wishes with lanterns is one of the traditional customs of the Mid-Autumn Festival. Since mid-to-late August, many consumers have begun to prepare for the Mid-Autumn Festival with lanterns. Data from the Pinduoduo platform shows that in the week ending at the end of August, the search popularity of keywords related to lanterns increased significantly, and the search volume of "Lanterns for Children Mid-Autumn Festival" increased by more than 100 times week-on-week; among all kinds of lanterns, consumers particularly prefer handmade products, and the search volume of keywords such as "Mid-Autumn Festival Lantern DIY Handmade" and "Handheld Lanterns for Children" has increased by three digits week-on-week.

The reporter reviewed the hot-selling products on major e-commerce platforms and found that most of the best-selling lantern products are produced in Yiwu.

It can be seen that as consumers pay more attention to rituals and traditional customs, there are still many business opportunities to be explored in the festival economy.

The Mid-Autumn Festival holiday is over and the National Day holiday is coming. The tourism market will reach its peak in the second half of the year.

According to the forecast data of Ctrip platform, the prices of domestic and outbound air tickets for the National Day holiday have dropped by more than 20% compared with the same period last year. Hotel prices have also dropped to a certain extent. Products with high quality and price ratio have driven the hot booking of long holiday travel.

Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Xi'an, Kunming, Nanjing and Chongqing became the top 10 popular cities during the National Day holiday.

In addition to provincial capitals and tourist cities, with the further development of rail transit, niche dark horse cities are also worth looking forward to.

Recently, the Hangzhou-Wenzhou high-speed railway was officially opened to traffic. The fastest travel time from Hangzhou to Wenzhou is 1 hour and 27 minutes, and the travel time from Wenzhou to Shanghai is also shortened to 2 hours. According to forecasts, Wenzhou in the Yangtze River Delta region is likely to become the city with the fastest growth in tourism orders.

Unlike the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, more than 60% of tourists during the National Day holiday are long-distance tourists, and local tours account for only 20%.

The top 10 outbound travel destinations include Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, Australia, the United Kingdom, Singapore, the Philippines, and the United States.

According to Qunar data, in terms of the increase in flight and hotel bookings during the National Day holiday, the top 10 countries with the fastest increase in popularity are: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan, Mexico, Madagascar, Cuba, Morocco, Guatemala, Kazakhstan and Montenegro.

Cai Muzi, a researcher at Qunar Big Data Research Institute, analyzed that among the top 10 countries with the largest increase in bookings during the National Day holiday, 5 are located on the Silk Road, and the top 3 are all countries along the Silk Road. The visa-free policy for Azerbaijan and Georgia has greatly boosted their tourism popularity. It is expected that with the advancement of the construction of the "Air Silk Road" and the further increase in flights, the demand for tourism and trade along the Silk Road will continue to increase rapidly.

In addition, more than half of the newly added destination countries are African countries. The construction of the "China-Africa Air Express" started last year. This year coincides with the 23rd anniversary of the establishment of the "China-Africa Cooperation Forum". It is expected that China's demand for flights and hotel bookings to Africa will continue to grow rapidly.

Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai have always been the main source of outbound tourists. Data from Qunar platform shows that outbound tourism has become more "downstream", and customers from small cities have no lack of purchasing power.

In the Yangtze River Delta region, Yangzhou, Jiangsu, Huzhou, Zhejiang, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, etc. all entered the top 10 third-tier cities for international air ticket and hotel orders during the National Day holiday.