Zhao Jia, general manager of Utour's inbound travel subsidiary U-believe, said that the inbound market during this year's holiday was characterized by a predominance of free independent travelers and backpackers.
Where operators once routinely organized groups of 20 to 30 travelers focused on business or conventional sightseeing of cultural relics, the market now increasingly demands six-person or eight-person family tours and customized small-group experiences, Zhao said.
Zhao noted that these smaller configurations allow for greater flexibility, deeper engagement with local culture, and more authentic interactions with Chinese communities.
At Renaissance Beijing Wangfujing Hotel on the second day of Spring Festival, several foreign guests gathered around tables in the restaurant, intently following hotel staff members as they learned the art of New Year picture rubbing — a traditional printmaking technique.
The scene was part of the hotel's specially curated "Intangible Cultural Heritage Hands-On" activities for Spring Festival: lantern painting on Day One, New Year picture rubbing on Day Two, floral crafts on Day Three and wind chime weaving on Day Four.
"We created these intangible cultural heritage projects so that guests could not only see but also create," said Fu Li, director of sales and marketing at the hotel. "Most inbound visitors come to experience traditional Chinese culture. They're heading to Wangfujing Street, the Forbidden City — the classic sites. We wanted to offer something that complements sightseeing with genuine participation."
The rise of small group travel is redrawing China's inbound tourism geography, with popular destinations shifting from traditional gateway cities like Beijing and Shanghai to second-tier and county-level cities, said industry data and travel operators.
Statistics from China's online travel platform Ctrip confirm the broadening map of inbound tourism, showing that Chengde and Zhangjiakou in Hebei province, along with Shenyang in Liaoning province, ranked among the top 10 cities for inbound visitor growth during Spring Festival, emerging as unexpected growth stars.
These second-tier cities, less familiar than Beijing or Shanghai, attracted visitors through distinctive cultural offerings and less crowded experiences, said Jiang Zhao, an associate researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.
Zhangjiakou, a co-host city of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, leveraged its ice and snow credentials, while Chengde's imperial mountain resort appealed to history-minded travelers seeking alternatives to better-known sites, Jiang added.
Even more striking is the penetration of inbound tourism into China's county-level cities. During the 2026 Spring Festival, 48 county-level cities recorded inbound visitor numbers that met the "A-level inbound tourism city" standard — defined as inbound tourists accounting for no less than 2.7 percent of total visitors, said Ctrip.
This is nearly double the 25 counties that met the same threshold during the 2023 Spring Festival, demonstrating the rapid geographic spread of international visitation beyond major urban centers.
Looking ahead, Zhao indicated that travel agencies plan to expand further into niche destinations including Guizhou province, Yunnan province and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, suggesting that the geographic diffusion of inbound tourism has further room to grow.
