Many scenic spots across multiple regions are offering free admission policies, and the post-holiday tourism market is showing signs of a "off-season not quiet" trend.

Source: Securities Times Network Author: Cao Chen

In recent days, multiple scenic areas have released free-ticket announcements. The spring outing demand combined with the “free-ticket effect” has quickly warmed up March, a traditional off-season for culture and tourism. After the holiday, the culture and tourism market shows a “non-off-season during the off-season” characteristic.

According to incomplete statistics, as of now, multiple provinces across the country, including Jiangxi, Henan, Liaoning, Zhejiang, Anhui, and others, have rolled out time-limited free-ticket preferential policies for scenic areas (some scenic areas are limited to specific visitors). Data from the Tongcheng Travel platform shows that in the past week, keyword search popularity for “free tickets for scenic areas,” “traveling out of peak hours,” and similar terms has continued to rise. The month-over-month (MoM) increase reached 358%. Among them, scenic areas such as Yuntai Mountain Scenic Area, Shenyang Imperial Palace, Mount Lu Scenic Area, Tianjilingmen, and Qingtianhe Scenic Area have entered the national hot list for free-ticket scenic areas, with their popularity surging to the TOP 10.

As of March 4, the platform’s search and booking popularity for hotels, scenic area tickets, and so on has clearly fallen from the peak period of the Spring Festival. However, compared with the same period last year, it is still up by more than 10%. For some popular scenic areas, the MoM increase in search volume reached 2.6 times, showing a “non-off-season during the off-season” scene. In terms of the source of visitors, during the Spring Festival, the return-to-home travel and cross-provincial travel that dominated gradually cooled down, while local trips and nearby travel have become increasingly active.

Looking at the details, in March, the Mount Lu Scenic Area in Jiangxi will waive ticket fees for all domestic and overseas visitors. In the past week, the Mount Lu Scenic Area’s search volume increased by 156% MoM, and the booking heat of hotels around the scenic area rose by 23% year-over-year. In addition, in March, the Yuntai Mountain Scenic Area in Henan will offer free admission to visitors from “the four provinces of mountains and rivers”—Henan, Shanxi, Shandong, and Hebei. This has driven the scenic area’s search volume to increase by 244% MoM, and hotel bookings around the scenic area have grown by 18% year-over-year. The Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum will issue 3,000 free tickets per day from March 3 to March 8 for Shenyang residents to reserve. On the Tongcheng platform, its search and reservation popularity increased by 163% MoM. After free tickets opened for reservation on March 3 and 4, they were quickly snapped up.

According to data from Qunar, the “free-ticket effect” directly drove a surge in hotel bookings around multiple scenic areas. On February 25, Jiangxi Mount Lu officially announced that from March 1 to March 31, 2026, free admission would be offered to all domestic and overseas visitors, covering eight major core scenic areas such as Mount Lu Scenic Area, Santayquan, and the Bailu Cave Academy. After the news was released, the number of hotel bookings in the business district where Mount Lu is located increased sharply. As of now, the number of bookings for hotels around Mount Lu for March stays surged by 5 times over the week before the announcement.

Data show that during the same period, the number of hotel bookings in Jiujiang City, Jiangxi was also boosted, with a MoM increase of 2.6 times, reflecting a consumption trend in which tourists use the free-ticket opportunity to deeply explore nearby cities.

Since November 2025, Quzhou, Zhejiang has provided free access to 13 core scenic areas for global visitors until March 31, 2026. Qunar data shows that during the free-ticket period, the citywide hotel booking volume in Quzhou increased by nearly 20% year-over-year. Among them, the driving effect from free scenic areas is particularly prominent: hotels near Jianglang Mountain increased by 47% year-over-year, the area near the ancient town of Shibabadu grew by 21%, and the areas near Shitingmen and Confucian Temple increased by 18%.

On February 25, Yuntai Mountain in Jiaozuo, Henan announced that it would waive ticket fees in March for visitors from the four provinces of Henan, Shanxi, Shandong, and Hebei. As of now, the number of hotel bookings for stays in Jiaozuo City in March increased by 2.5 times MoM.

On February 11, Ma’anshan, Anhui announced that five major scenic areas would be open for free to global visitors until March 31. Qunar data shows that within 15 days after the news was released, the number of hotel bookings for stays in March at local hotels increased by 3.1 times MoM.

Yang Han, a researcher from Qunar’s big data research institute, analyzes that free admission to scenic areas lowers the decision threshold for travelers to choose to go on trips. By trading a “ticket discount” for an “added passenger flow,” it can not only quickly activate the flow of people around scenic areas, but also form a noticeable consumption spillover effect, radiating and driving culture and tourism consumption locally and across regions. At the same time, free admission also sets higher requirements for service quality in scenic areas, forcing the industry to improve its fine-grained and professional operation standards.

It is worth noting that this weekend will bring “International Women’s Day on March 8.” Scenic areas such as Huangshan in Anhui, Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan, and Ping Shan Forest Park in Nanjing have introduced time-limited free-ticket policies for female visitors, driving related scenic area search volumes to rise by more than 1.8 times MoM. With the “free-ticket effect” combined with the weekend and the Women’s Day node, the booking heat of related travel products this weekend increased by more than 65% MoM over the previous weekend.

Tongcheng’s research institute believes that after the holiday, this year’s culture and tourism market shows a “non-off-season during the off-season” characteristic, mainly driven by three factors: first, multiple regions’ scenic areas have introduced free-ticket or free-admission incentives, directly stimulating travel intentions; second, local trips and nearby trips have become the mainstream, with shorter travel radius but noticeably higher travel frequency; third, some office workers and older groups choose to travel out of peak times after the holiday, pursuing a higher-value travel experience. As the weather warms up, in the past week, the MoM growth in search volume on the Tongcheng Travel platform for keywords such as “flower viewing” and “spring outings” has already exceeded 110%. It is expected that in late March, the country will usher in a new round of smaller travel peak.

(Editor: Wen Jing)

Keywords:

                                                            Scenic Area
                                                            Tourism