Yunnan tourism flourishes amid spring beauty

Citizen takes photo of blooming cherries in Kunming's Yuantongshan Park. [Photo/China Youth Daily]

Yunnan in spring is a colorful world of flowers, with each city offering unique floral landscapes and flower-viewing experiences.

"2024 Spring Outing Travel Trend Report" released by Tongcheng Travel, showed that the top three popular flowers for viewing are cherry blossoms, rapeseed flowers, and peach blossoms, with nearly 40% of users choosing cherry blossoms as the main attraction for their spring outings. Since March, Yunnan has successively launched flower-viewing festivals to leverage the spring season and promote the "flower-viewing economy."

In Kunming's Chenggong district, a 1-kilometer-long cherry blossom avenue in Luolong Park boasts 505 Yunnan cherry trees in full bloom, attracting many people to enjoy the warm sunshine and the romance of cherry blossoms. 

Data showed that from March 9 to 11, over 200,000 people visited the park to view the cherry blossoms, boosting consumption in Chengong's core business district. One of the local shopping malls welcomed 232,000 people, with its sales exceeding 11.33 million yuan.

Since March, the Chinese shopping platform Meituan has run a series of spring outing live streams, introducing popular spring travel routes and new flower-viewing activities and selling flower-viewing tourism products. To date, over one million people have watched the live streams.

Moreover, flower-viewing in Yunnan incorporates various recreational activities like shopping and sports. Numerous cities in Yunnan host themed night markets, music festivals, cultural events, and sports activities, creating fresh consumption experiences and drawing more visitors.

Along with the booming "spring economy," the demand for shared electric bikes, a vital supplement to urban public transportation, also showed significant growth. 

In popular tourist spots and core commercial areas in cities like Xishuangbanna, Qujing, and Dali, shared electric bikes are accessible everywhere. They not only facilitated tourists' travel but also alleviated traffic congestion, empowering the continuous growth of the local economy.

Data from the railway sector further confirmed the potential and momentum of Yunnan's spring economy. 

During the Water-Splashing Festival, the passenger flow on the China-Laos Railway surged, with a total of 178,000 passengers transported from April 13 to 15, an increase of 18.7% compared to the same period last year. The Xishuangbanna station recorded an average daily passenger volume of 40,000.

Source: Yunnan Daily; trans-editing by Guo Yao