Tradition takes center stage during holiday

Cultural experiences took center stage during the just-concluded Dragon Boat Festival holiday as people from across the country embarked on journeys in search of traditional festivities involving boat races, rituals and seasonal foods, travel agencies said.

Searches for keywords such as "Dragon Boat Festival", "dragon boat" and "zongzi" more than tripled from a month earlier on online travel platform Qunar, reflecting the growing appeal of tradition-infused travel and transforming the three-day break into a vibrant celebration of Chinese cultural heritage.

Meanwhile, searches for folk-culture tourism jumped 55 percent year-on-year, according to People's Daily Overseas Edition, citing online travel agency Mafengwo.

Dragon boat racing, the festival's most iconic tradition, has evolved from a spectator event into a participatory cultural attraction. Travel platform Ctrip reported that searches for "dragon boat" rose 41.3 percent week-on-week, with races proving to be a major tourism magnet.

Guangdong province led the trend. Travel-related searches for Foshan increased by 134.9 percent week-on-week, driven by the famed Diejiao dragon boat race, often hailed as the "F1 on water", Ctrip said.

A tourist from Shanxi province, who went to Foshan to see the Diejiao race, said the chants of the boatmen and the roar of the drums made it a spectacularly moving experience.

"No matter how exciting the video is, nothing beats the real experience. I could feel the vitality all around," she said.

Not only in Guangdong, dragon boat events boosted tourism nationwide. Searches for Jingzhou in Hubei province rose 87.5 percent week-on-week, while Zigui in the same province — the hometown of poet Qu Yuan — became a holiday hot spot thanks to its cultural festival, according to Ctrip.

Qu was a legendary poet and minister in the State of Chu during the Warring States Period (475-221 BC). He drowned himself in the Miluo River when he learned that the State of Chu was being defeated by the State of Qin. Legend has it that upon learning of Qu's death, locals took out boats to search for his body, dropping rice dumplings into the river to prevent the body from being eaten by fish. It is to honor this legend that Chinese people hold dragon boat races and make zongzi to eat during the festival.

There was huge demand for seasonal Dragon Boat Festival delicacies as well. According to Qunar, food lovers hit the road in droves in search of festive cuisines. Instead of debating on whether to sample sweet or savory rice dumplings known as zongzi, hundreds headed to Quanzhou, Fujian province, to sample Minnan-style braised pork zongzi, or to Guiyang in Guizhou province to try the unique Buyi ash zongzi mixed with plant-ash lye, it said.

Beyond zongzi, crayfish from Qianjiang, Hubei province, mackerel dumplings from Qingdao, Shandong province, and cold fermented noodle soup from Lanzhou, Gansu province, were also big draws for food connoisseurs who traveled thousands of miles just to sample the fare. According to Qunar, hotel occupancy in these foodie-friendly destinations — including Qianjiang, Qingdao, Lanzhou, Quanzhou and Guiyang — increased by more than 20 percent during the holiday.

The folk-culture fervor fuels local industries. Miluo in Hunan province — known as the "hometown of dragon boats" — is home to 20 boat-building factories with an annual turnover of more than 200 million yuan ($29.6 million), according to data from the local government.

The finals of the 2026 Hunan Dragon Boat Super League kicked off in Miluo on Thursday. A total of 38 top dragon boat teams from 14 cities and prefectures across the province gathered to compete in the two-day race. Through dragon boat racing and folk traditions, they celebrated the spirit of Qu Yuan and participated in a grand Dragon Boat Festival event that deeply integrated culture, tourism and sports.

One workshop in Luojiang township continued working through the holiday to meet rising orders. Likewise, a zongzi producer in Quzici township said the number of orders defied all predictions of a market downturn.

Since late April, the Quzici plant has run at full capacity. Local villager Weng Zhenggui, who lives just 400 meters away and works eight hours a day, made over 1,000 zongzi and earned up to 6,000 yuan per month.

The cooking and packing processes in the plant are automated, boosting daily output to 100,000 zongzi while ensuring consistent quality. "The automated system precisely controls temperature and pressure, saving labor and improving efficiency and taste consistency," said company chairman Wu Liman.

Inbound tourism showed strong growth during the holiday, with Fliggy reporting that bookings were up more than sixfold year-on-year.

zoushuo@chinadaily.com.cn