China sees surge in Dragon Boat tourism as foreign interest in festival grows

China is expected to record a major uptick in inbound tourism over the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, with travel platforms reporting huge jumps in bookings by overseas users seeking out traditional Chinese cultural experiences.

Chinese travel platform Fliggy has logged a more than 600% year-on-year increase in inbound bookings for the three-day holiday, which begins on Friday. Fliggy is owned by Alibaba Group Holding, which also owns the South China Morning Post.

The surge comes as traditional Chinese festivals become a major draw for foreign tourists, adding to the boom in inbound travel that China has witnessed since Beijing began relaxing its visa policies a few years ago.

With spending by international travellers rising over 10% to US$135 billion last year, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council, the travel boom is set to give China’s economy a much-needed shot in the arm amid sluggish domestic demand.

More than a dozen Chinese provinces have rolled out festival-themed events for the holiday combining cultural, sports and retail experiences, as local governments seek to turn traditional customs into drivers of consumer spending, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

According to Fliggy, bookings for cross-province flight-and-hotel packages during the holiday rose over 90% month on month, with travellers increasingly searching for destinations hosting major dragon boat races.

Searches for hotels near major race venues in Guangzhou and Foshan in China’s southern Guangdong province, which host the country’s best-known dragon boat races each year, rose about 210% from the previous week ahead of the holiday, CCTV reported.

This year, Foshan’s centuries-old Diejiao dragon boat race – often described as “Formula One on water” due to its narrow-waterway format – will feature a 37-member crew from New Zealand, highlighting the event’s growing international profile.

The paddlers from New Zealand will need to power a 25-metre-long dragon boat through a channel that is just 5 metres wide at its narrowest point.

“It’s a lot of fun seeing foreigners racing dragon boats here, and it attracts many locals and overseas visitors,” said Zhu Feng, a Guangzhou resident who plans to visit Foshan to see the races. “It has spread widely on social media. It helps people come not just to watch, but to spend [money] and share it online.”

The Dragon Boat Festival comes amid signs of broader weakness in China’s consumer spending.

Retail sales fell 0.6% year on year in May, the first decline since China lifted its Covid-19 pandemic lockdown at the end of 2022, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday.

The data followed a subdued Labour Day holiday in May, an important marker of China’s consumer confidence. While official data showed that domestic tourist trips rose 3.6% year on year over the holiday, total tourism spending grew by just 2.9%, the slowest growth recorded since 2023.

For businesses benefiting from festival tourism, the challenge is whether the boost can outlast the holiday itself.

“Holidays certainly bring a wave of tourists, but it fades quickly,” said Susan Yu, a milk tea vendor in Guangzhou. “What we care about now is whether this consumption momentum can be extended, rather than being concentrated only on short holidays.”