Nuggets "holiday economy"

■ China Economic Times reporter Wang Lijuan

Travel during the Qingming Festival holiday has driven the continued growth of consumer markets in various places, and the popularity of the holiday economy has added fuel to the recovery of China's consumer market.

According to the data center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 119 million domestic tourism trips were made during the holiday three days, an increase of 11.5% compared with the same period in 2019 according to a comparable caliber; domestic tourists spent 53.95 billion yuan on travel, an increase of 12.7% compared with the same period in 2019. According to this calculation, per capita consumption exceeds 450 yuan.

01 Residents 'consumption confidence has gradually increased

As the weather warms and hundreds of flowers bloom, the "people follow the crowd" mode during the Qingming Festival holiday begins. From "lovesickness" to "flower viewing craze", more and more people are choosing to go out of their homes and enter nature. The rising atmosphere of fireworks and rich consumption scenes demonstrate the vitality of the cultural tourism market.

"The Qingming Festival holiday has set off a small boom in the domestic cultural tourism market." Hu Min, a researcher at the Central Party School (National School of Administration), said in an interview with a reporter from the China Economic Times that judging from the data, China's tourism consumer market has truly recovered, which has laid a good foundation for further stimulating the vitality and potential of the Chinese consumer market.

"The demand for cultural and tourism consumption during the Qingming Festival is strong and has returned to before the epidemic. The number of domestic tourists, tourism revenue, and unit prices of passengers all exceed 2019. The trend of continuous expansion of holiday consumption is beginning to appear." Chen Lifen, a researcher at the Institute of Market Economy of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said in an interview with a reporter from the China Economic Times.

Business big data monitoring by the Ministry of Commerce shows that during the Qingming Festival holiday, sales of green organic food, clothing, home appliances, communication equipment, etc. all increased by more than 10% year-on-year. Jiang Zhao, assistant researcher at the Institute of Circulation and Consumption of the Institute of Economic Trade and Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, said in an interview with a reporter from the China Economic Times that during this year's Qingming Festival holiday, China's consumer market is developing well. From the data point of view, both commodity consumption and service consumption have achieved a high level of growth, reflecting that residents 'consumption confidence is gradually improving.

02 The holiday economy presents new characteristics

With the popularity of special activities such as the "Tianshui Malatang" experience tour, the "Wang Po Talking about Matchmaking" cultural tour and the "Hairpin Flower Tour", China's holiday economy has shown new characteristics.

Chen Lifen believes that, first, the growth rate of holiday service consumption exceeds that of commodity consumption, with great development potential. Second, new consumption models have emerged during the holidays, such as "visiting relatives + traveling" during the Spring Festival and "sweeping ceremony + traveling" during the Qingming Festival. The cultural and tourism consumption chain has been lengthened, and cross-industry integrated development has been further deepened. Third, personalized experiential consumption is growing rapidly, especially for young consumer groups, with obvious characteristics such as immersive consumption, self-pleasing consumption, and emotional consumption, which has a strong demonstration and driving role.

In Hu Min's view, seasonal tourism will continue to be popular, scene tourism will become a new fashion, and cross-border tourism will still be full of charm are all new features of this Qingming holiday economy.

Small and medium-sized cities have become hot tourist destinations due to their characteristic consumption scenarios, which has attracted the attention of experts interviewed and is considered to be a major new feature of the holiday economy in recent years. "Although large tourist cities have always been popular, more small towns are also good places to travel and sightseeing. They can not only appropriately reduce the cost of tourism expenditures, but also enjoy the fun of traveling, reflecting the diversification of China's tourism consumer market., multi-level, multi-format." Hu Min believes.

"The popularity of small cities is mainly driven by three groups of people." Chen Lifen analyzed that first, people traveling in reverse and sinking tourism bring increased consumption to small and medium-sized cities; second, people returning home copy the city's consumption behavior patterns to their hometowns, promoting leisure consumption such as movie viewing, coffee drinking, and tourism. Consumption has extended to the sinking market and grown rapidly; third, the consumption of local residents in small and medium-sized cities has upgraded.

03 Make up for shortcomings and stimulate the vitality of the "holiday economy"

The gradual release of the potential of the holiday economy will play a strong traction role in expanding domestic market demand and promoting economic and social development.

Regarding how to further make up for the shortcomings and stimulate the vitality of the holiday economy, Hu Min said that from the current point of view, we must continue to consolidate the good momentum of the development of the holiday market. First, we must further purify the cultural and tourism consumer market environment and continuously create high-quality, honest, and convenient cultural and tourism consumption environment with a high degree of convenience makes consumers happy to come, willing to spend, and stay, thereby lengthening the consumption chain; Second, combined with the development of the digital economy and cultural and creative industries, large, medium and small cities and rural areas with tourism endowments should use more brains to plan and create a number of cultural and tourism consumption scenarios with cultural content and spiritual qualities to meet consumption needs at all levels.

Chen Lifen suggested that the first is to enrich the diversified supply system for holiday consumption. Support scientific and technological innovation and business innovation, enrich consumption scenarios in the sinking market, increase the construction of traditional festival culture, support the holding of special holiday activities in core consumption districts, ancient towns, etc., and create a new cultural, tourism and commercial consumption gathering area.

The second is to improve the service consumption market environment. Use big data, artificial intelligence and other technologies to strengthen data monitoring and popularity forecasting of scenic spots and business districts to improve management efficiency during peak tourism periods. Strengthen price management and service supervision in hot tourist cities and scenic spots, build a tourism-centered service quality evaluation system, and protect consumer rights and interests.

In addition, experts interviewed suggested improving the paid leave system to promote holiday consumption.

Chen Lifen believes that greater efforts should be made to implement the paid leave system to enhance the rigidity of the paid leave system. Guide and promote households to better realize flexible vacations and off-peak travel. Increase the number of legal holidays to better unleash consumption potential.

Hu Min believes that it is necessary to plan and design the peak-shifting paid leave system that has been discussed for many years, which will allow working people to choose their own vacation time. On a large scale, it will help promote the formation of a normalized holiday economy and maintain the sustainability of the cultural and tourism consumer market. Sustainable consumption vitality.