Off the beaten trek

Young Chinese travelers have become a major force in the tourism market and are increasingly willing to pay for comfortable accommodation, even if it means paying a steep price for five-star hotels.

Many travel long distances to other cities just to check out a nice restaurant that catches their fancy online.

The desire to experience something new and unique and their pursuit of a sense of happiness has fueled their enthusiasm for travel.

Yang Linlin immediately grabbed a train ticket with a few of her friends to visit Feicui Island－or Jade Island－in northern Hebei province's Changli county in 2017 after seeing a post about it online.

"I saw there were performances, bonfires, barbecues and camping along the seashore, which immediately made me want to go there," Yang says.

The 25-year-old then spent two days with her friends on the island watching live music and messing around on the beach.

"It was so worth it," she says. "I made new friends and deepened my relationship with my existing ones."

Now, Yang has settled in Shaanxi province's capital Xi'an and says she intends to travel at least twice a year.

Yang is among those born in the 1990s who accounted for 30 percent of the tourism market during last year's May 1 holiday, according to China's biggest online travel agency Ctrip.

Around 96 percent of this age group take at least one holiday a year, Ctrip reports.

Instead of the traditional destinations favored by older travelers, younger people are paying more attention to places of comfort that satisfy their main needs.

Bookings at five-star rated hotels doubled during the 2019 National Day holiday compared with the previous year, according to Fenqile, a shopping platform that offers installment purchase plans.

More than 80 percent of the platform's users were born in the 1990s.

The number of hotel bookings made through Fenqile for rooms costing more than 500 yuan ($72) per night grew by 40 percent year-on-year during the October holiday.

These young travelers prefer more distinctive homestays and themed hotels, and enjoy experiencing new hotels in every destination, Fenqile shows.

Spending on gourmet food has also increased.

Dining consumption during travel has grown by 20 percent annually over the past three years, according to the China Tourism Academy.

Among those born after 1995, 60 percent of their expenditure is on food and drink, according to market tracker iResearch, a figure backed up by a recent report by the tourism website Qyer, which said that more than 70 percent of younger travelers are willing to spend more on gourmet food during their travels.

Many places have launched gourmet food events to attract young people, such as the sea urchin food festival in Shanwei, Guangdong province, and the Greater Khingan Mountains food festival in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. These events have proved popular among young travelers.

Some young people have sought jobs that give them a greater opportunity to travel the world.

A love of travel led Luo Yunyao to start her career in the tourism industry in April last year. She works at the hotel services division of Ctrip and facilitates communication between Japanese hotels and Chinese tourism enterprises and travelers.

The job has allowed her to acquire useful travel information and subsidies, all while she helps fellow travelers. Luo is a strong believer that travel is the best way to understand the world. Before she departs on a trip, she reads up on the history and culture of her destination, which helps to add to the excitement. She has visited Indonesia, Spain, Austria and the UK, where she has enjoyed good times interacting with the locals.

Film sets have also grown quite popular with travelers born after the 1980s.

In 2019, they accounted for more than 70 percent of those who booked summer flights to destinations famous for being cinematic locations, according to Ctrip.

The reality show Back To Field, broadcast in April 2018, has helped to turn Zhejiang province's Tonglu county into a tourism hot spot. The county saw its intake of tourists more than double in May of that year. A filming location for the TV show All Is Well, which aired in March last year, had to be abandoned after being overwhelmed by travelers.

In a similar vein, Yang also visited a small pub in southeastern Fujian province after seeing it featured in the film The Left Ear.

She ordered some wine, sung a song and experienced what it was like to star in the film.

"Places like that give me the feeling of traveling back in time, like I am back in my high school years," she says.