Camping and Tea Tasting: "Mountain Economy" Services for Chinese Young People | Tourism | Economy
Taiyuan, August 10th (Xinhua) - In the summer evening, the humid wind blew over Zhongtiao Mountain, and a tea house halfway up the mountain began to pick up guests. By the window is a lotus themed card seat, with several young men and women around 20 years old sitting around a long wooden table, chatting about their college lives.
This small restaurant called "Drinking Tea on the Mountain" is located on a hillside at the southern end of Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province. Its new Chinese style appearance, card seats hidden in green plants, artistic tea products and decorations make it a "new favorite" for young people to gather and check in.
The picture shows Chinese young people cooking tea in a tea space in Mount Huangshan, Anhui Province. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Du Yu
"At first, I didn't expect a teahouse to be 'ignited' by young people," said the founder of the teahouse, Jie Rui. Since the trial operation at the end of last year, more than half of the customers are between the ages of 18 and 30, and the photos and videos they share have become popular on social media platforms multiple times.
In winter, there is "brewing tea in a furnace", and in summer, there is "ice tea cold extract", paired with snacks, baked goods, and fruit plates. "We don't just come for tea, but more importantly, we temporarily leave the high-rise buildings in the city and enjoy this atmosphere and sense of space in the mountains," said Li Muran, a newcomer to the workplace
A few dozen meters away from the tea house, there is a wide camping base. On cool summer nights, tents of all sizes light up and scatter in the mountains. Within less than half an hour of driving from the city center, you can experience a private kitchen barbecue, a campfire party, and a night view of the city.
"There are more and more outdoor campsites around the city, and I have bought a set of camping equipment specifically to take the elderly and children out for leisure and experience the 'poetry and distance' at the doorstep," said Wei Dapeng, a resident of Yuncheng.
On August 8th, in Qionghai City, Hainan Province, citizens and tourists camped by the Wanquan River to cool off. Shen Jizhong
In order to provide visitors with a more convenient outdoor experience, many campsites offer outdoor equipment rental and catering services. By searching through commonly used group buying software and short video platforms, orders can be placed with just one click based on the number of people and location.
The boom of "mountain economy" has also driven the sales of outdoor products. In a sports brand store in Jinzhong, Shanxi, outdoor camping products are prominently displayed, and customers flock to the product experience area such as tents, moisture-proof mats, and folding tables and chairs.
In the summer outdoor sports hot selling list released by JD.com in July, camping cars and folding chairs were all on the list, and the sales of quick drying sun protection clothing increased by 230% year-on-year. Night camping and stargazing are one of the favorite programs for children in parent-child camping, directly driving the sales of astronomical telescopes.
According to Tianyancha data, before 2014, there were only a few hundred domestic camping related enterprises in China; Since 2021, there have been over 90000 newly registered camping related enterprises, of which more than half were established within the past year.
The picture shows tourists taking photos while visiting the "Three Colored Ceramic Art Village" in Luoyang, Henan Province. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Xu Jiayi
"Playing outdoors, mountain scenery is a new choice for weekends; wearing outdoors, mountain scenery is a new style of dressing." Lifestyle platform Xiaohongshu described "mountain lifestyle" in "Top 10 Life Trends in 2022". Nowadays, "mountain youth" are constantly creating new ways through frequent experiences of traveling between cities and mountains. They hope to return to the mountains, but are not limited to them.
There are many ways to play in the mountains. Some young people like to make tea and talk about life, some like to make a cup of coffee and look up at the sky, and some like to bring ingredients and show off their skills. Li Jie, General Manager of Beijing Xiangyu Tourism Development Company, said that in order to make the mountain industry more attractive, it is necessary to organically integrate camping, homestays, catering, intangible cultural heritage workshops, and good food markets to create more possibilities.
The 14th Five Year Plan for the Development of Tourism Industry, released in 2022, proposes to improve the supply system of tourism products, promote self driving RV tourism, form a networked campsite service system and a relatively complete self driving RV tourism industry chain, and launch a number of self driving RV campsites and tourism stations.
"Young people are willing to pay for the mountain atmosphere, which is a manifestation of the upgrading of consumption concepts. At the same time, developing the mountain cultural and tourism economy requires not only sound supporting services and product supply, but also gradually standardized management models to enhance the outdoor experience of tourists." said Zhou Qingjie, a professor at Beijing Business University.
