Short trips draw increasing crowds for upcoming holiday

Short trips such as suburb areas or destinations that are within two hours by high-speed train are the most popular option for the upcoming Dragon Boat Festival, The Paper reported.

Data from online travel agency Ctrip shows that some high-speed railway routes with travel radius within 300 kilometers are some of the most popular routes, such as Shanghai-Hangzhou, Shenzhen-Guangzhou, Beijing-Beidaihe, and Beijing-Tianjin.

The top 10 most popular destinations during the Dragon Boat Festival are Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Qingdao, Wuhan, Nanjing, Shenzhen and Xi'an, Ctrip said.

According to travel service and social networking platform Mafengwo, homestays have become a keyword on online traveling platforms. Over the past week, searches for homestays in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu and Hangzhou have risen 80 percent.

As some areas experienced a heatwave this year and issued alerts for high temperatures, trips that can escape the summer heat have risen higher on people's agendas.

Data from Tongcheng Travel, a Suzhou, Jiangsu province-based online travel agency, showed that since early June searches for "water parks" and "drifting" related products surged over 150 percent and 272 percent respectively.

Camping also gained popularity on online traveling platforms. According to Ctrip, camping sites in Shanghai, Beijing and Anji, East China's Zhejiang province are some of the most popular. Orders for camping products in Shanghai have increased by sevenfold year-on-year.

As costs for outbound tourism reduces, some people have chosen destinations that are within a three-hour radius by plane.

Data from Ctrip showed prices of single tickets for the Dragon Boat holiday are about 6 percent lower than those during the May Day holiday, and outbound travel reservations for this year's holiday increased by over 12-fold year-on-year.

According to Tongcheng Travel, 65 percent of outbound travelers choose Southeast Asian countries, with Bangkok, Phnom Penh, Kuala Lumpur, Manila and Singapore as some of the most-favored overseas destinations during the holiday.