Catering is an essential element of mass tourism, and gourmet food is a rigid demand to well-off tourism, said Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Academy, at a forum.

Gourmet food has become a new driving force for facilitating tourism consumption and promoting tourism to high-quality development.

This year, many young people turned their eyes to some small-crowd cities with characteristics for enjoying a leisurely holiday while having a good meal, as well as avoiding the surging tide during the eight-day holiday.

According to a list of popular small-crowd tourism destinations from Mafengwo, a travel service and social networking platform, more than half of cities stand out for their gourmet food.

Quanzhou of Fujian province, Taizhou of Zhejiang province, Leshan of Sichuan province, and Liuzhou of Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, with gourmet food such as ancient flavor food, seafood, and luosifen (river snail rice noodles) are ranked in the list.