The research group is currently occupying museums across the country, and it is not necessarily possible to get tickets to the Forbidden City 7 days in advance! I picked up a number at the nearby roast duck restaurant at 9:30 pm and didn't eat it until 3 pm... This summer, the Forbidden City | Museum | Roast Duck
This summer vacation, the Palace Museum, Shaanxi History Museum, Nanjing Museum, Suzhou Museum... It seems like popular museums all over the country have the same problem: they are really too popular, there are too many people!
Booking is necessary when entering the museum, and it is difficult to grab spots. queuing is necessary to watch exhibitions, and the crowded scene of "people following the crowd" has become the norm. Especially during the summer vacation, museums welcomed parent-child study groups flocking from all directions with various themes, instantly becoming the top of another track in the cultural and tourism industry, and the wave of study fever was higher than wave after wave.
"I can't grab it, I can't even grab it."
How popular is the recent Forbidden City really?
"The daily limit is 30000 yuan, and you need to make a real name appointment 7 days in advance to grab a ticket. After setting the alarm clock and flashing it on several phones, you have been trying to grab it for three days in a row, but you still can't get it. You can't get in at first, but when you swipe it, it shows that the reservation is full and you can't even get it..." Mr. Song has already booked a ticket to Beijing next week with his child, but unfortunately, he has been unable to get a ticket to the Forbidden City. He inquired through his friends in Beijing and found out that the asking price of the scalpers at the doorstep has also increased six times.
Just like the typical siege effect, people who want to go to the Forbidden City feel that even successful reservations have become a luxury now, while many people who have successfully made reservations and arrived at the Forbidden City say that Beijing, under the high temperature of 40 degrees Celsius, has been a spectacular scene of people queuing up in line with sweat and sweat since early morning. "People are about to heat up, and this immersive experience of 'high temperature+high humidity' is really unbearable. For those who haven't come yet, it's better to come slowly." Those who have been there all give advice like this.
Ms. Fang, who originally planned to take a staggered trip before the official summer vacation, underestimated the enthusiasm of Chinese people for visiting Beijing, especially for visiting the Palace Museum.
Pedestrian flow at Beijing South Railway Station
"Fortunately, we registered early and finally managed to secure our children's tickets. As adults, we couldn't book tickets and had to take a stroll outside the Forbidden City. There were three children going together this time, and the study camp didn't require parents' companionship, so the children went on their own."
Ms. Fang's son arrived at Donghuamen at 8:00 am on July 2nd and quickly changed into the uniforms of the study camp. He picked up his backpack, carried a notebook and pen, and embarked on a one-day exploration tour of the Forbidden City. Due to the fact that the teachers who lead the research and study team will always broadcast activity photos and videos in the parent WeChat group, the parents jokingly said that they seemed to have also traveled around the Forbidden City.
Ms. Fang of the research camp
On a Beijing study app, a study package called "Little Emperor's Day" has a daily selling price of 480 yuan and sales have exceeded 15000 copies, which is just the tip of the iceberg among many study institutions.
The roast duck number I picked up at 9:30 am
It's not until 3:30 pm that it's my turn
The crowds are not only crowded inside the Forbidden City, but also outside the roast duck restaurant.
The Four Seasons Minfu Restaurant, which ranks on the must eat list in Beijing, is known as the "roast duck restaurant that can see the Forbidden City". Generally, tourists from other places who come to Beijing need to check in.
"Do you know how exaggerated it is? I went to the scene at 9:30 in the morning to pick up the number and saw that there were already many people inside the store. I started eating roast duck early in the morning and was also shocked. Wait and wait, it wasn't until 3:30 pm that it was my turn..." Ms. Fang said that now, in order to eat roast duck, she really broke through her limit. It is said that this roast duck restaurant operates from morning until evening, with the only constant being that the queue is always long. And I can't get an account online either, so I have to go to the store to get it.
Except for the bustling Forbidden City and surrounding restaurants, the situation in almost all other museums in China is similar.
Mr. Zhou, who plans to take his daughter to Xi'an for a few days at the end of July, said that it is also very difficult to book seats at the Shaanxi History Museum. Although it is free, the museum has a daily flow limit of 12000 people and ticket sales start at 4 o'clock every day. Tickets can only be sold 3 days in advance.
"Almost all the spots are available in seconds, so it turns out that what people say is difficult to make appointments is true." Mr. Zhou learned from his friends at the travel agency that summer vacation is indeed a time of rapid flow of people, and the spots are also tight. The travel agency has now formed a tour guide group, which will add a visit to a treasure museum in addition to the basic museum. The cost is 198 yuan/person, and it is said that there is a high possibility of an appointment. However, it remains to be known three days in advance whether the appointment is made or not.
Liu Hui, who wants to go to Suzhou Museum, also encounters the same troubles. On the official official account of the reservation platform, all the tickets for the past 7 days have shown "no tickets".
The craze for study tours has been raging all the way
Set a new historical high
Nowadays, children not only have to read thousands of books, but also travel thousands of miles. Behind the trend of study tours is the support of national policies in the past decade.
In February 2013, the General Office of the State Council issued the National Tourism and Leisure Outline, proposing to gradually promote research and study tours for primary and secondary school students; In August 2014, the "Several Opinions on Promoting the Reform and Development of the Tourism Industry" were issued, which for the first time explicitly included study tours in the daily education scope of primary and secondary school students; Later, in the context of the "double reduction" of compulsory education, coupled with the innovation of the new generation of parents' education philosophy, the market for graduate school travel continued to rise.
According to a set of data on study tours released by the China Tourism Research Institute, the number of study tours reached 4.8 million in 2019, increased to 4.94 million in 2021, and exceeded 6 million in 2022, setting a new historical high.
Mr. Zhou has calculated for everyone why he enrolled his children in a graduate school group: taking their children on trips during summer vacation has become a necessity for modern families, but parents and children may not necessarily be interested in one place, and the cost is also a considerable expense.
For a family of three, the cost per person is 3000 yuan, so the total is 9000 yuan. Nowadays, educational trips on the market usually do not require parental companionship. Children are led by teachers and peers to travel together, which may cost more than 4000 yuan. However, compared to the total expenditure of the family, it still saves four to five thousand yuan. Moreover, parents and children have the corresponding freedom and relaxation. For research institutions, children, and parents, it can be said that they meet each other's needs.
And the pace of being trapped by the epidemic for three years has finally been released in a concentrated manner this summer. This may also explain why, from officials to businesses, to families, study tours have replaced the popular camping methods in the past and seized a new high ground in the cultural and tourism industry this summer.
