BEIJING, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) -- As the sun slipped beneath the horizon, painting the sky with streaks of orange and crimson, the shores of Qishui Bay in Wenchang City, Hainan Province, were filled with anticipation.
Last Wednesday, tourists gathered shoulder to shoulder, eyes fixed on the launchpad. At 7:50 p.m., the rocket thundered to life and soared skyward in a blaze of light, greeted by a wave of applause from the thrilled crowd.
Among them was Mr. He, who had brought his children to Hainan, China's southern island province, for this unforgettable experience. With Wenchang, home to China's only coastal low-latitude launch site, in its busiest launch window of the year, the entire city buzzed with excitement.
"This is the first time we have witnessed such a spectacular sight," he said.
He and his family traveled from Jiangxi Province, timing their trip with the summer school break to broaden his child's horizons. After the launch, they explored the Wenchang Spaceflight Science Center for an immersive experience of aerospace science.
As schools across the country are now on summer break, China has entered its two-month summer travel peak, or Shuyun, which started in early July.
Chunyun, which literally means Spring Festival travel rush, is billed as the world's largest annual human migration, marked by homeward journeys of people working outside their hometowns.
In recent years, the similar term Shuyun was coined to describe the summer travel boom, sparked by the overlap of school summer breaks and peak travel season, as people seek getaways to escape the summer heat.
According to China State Railway Group Co., Ltd., the country's railways are expected to handle 1.01 billion passenger trips during the 62-day summer travel rush ending on August 31, with an average of 16.29 million trips per day.
To address the fast-growing passenger travel demand, overnight sleeper train services have been rolled out on some routes across China.
For instance, Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, has put into operation sleeper trains connecting the city with metropolises including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. These services adopt a "dusk departure, dawn arrival" schedule, which gives passengers a chance to have a rest during the journey. With an average occupancy rate of over 85 percent, it's clear that passengers have embraced the new services.
Students are a major passenger group. According to Tongcheng Travel, a leading Chinese online travel agency, family and student travelers remain the dominant groups this summer. Family travelers account for about 38 percent of domestic air passengers, while students make up roughly 29 percent, together exceeding 60 percent of the total.
This year's Shuyun also picks up steam from the ongoing "China Travel" trend, with more international visitors joining the rush to experience China.
"We are currently in talks with travel agencies in Vietnam and Thailand that have shown interest in the attractions of southern Xinjiang," said Zhang Jie, deputy general manager of a local travel agency in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, adding that while previous tour packages primarily featured natural scenery in northern and eastern parts of the region, international travelers are increasingly seeking in-depth experiences centered on local history and culture.
The growing appetite of international visitors for deep dives into Chinese culture has also been echoed by Yang Lina, head of a tourism operator based in Toushan Village, which sits at the foot of the Changbai Mountains in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, northeast China's Jilin Province.
The village has seen a steady influx of international study tour groups this summer. More than 200 Russian teenagers just wrapped up their visit, during which they participated in a wide range of activities that included outdoor exploration, off-road driving and hot spring experiences.
"With the continued effects of visa-free policies and other facilitation measures, more overseas tourists and students are choosing China as a preferred summer destination," Yang told Xinhua.
China has expanded visa-free policies in recent years, allowing longer stays and wider travel. The country has also introduced new conveniences, like instant tax refunds for departing visitors.
Data from the National Immigration Administration show that in the first half of 2026, visa-free entries by foreign nationals surged 30.6 percent year on year to surpass 17.8 million. In 2025, China received more than 150 million inbound tourist visits, up over 17 percent year on year.
Sun Zhe, an associate professor with the Economics School of Jilin University, believes summer travel in China is shifting from "enjoying the scenery" to "experiencing life". Various destinations have created diverse consumption scenarios, such as study tours, health care, sports and cultural events, which also provide windows for overseas tourists to gain a deeper understanding of China.
"The emergence of the summer travel boom reflects China's economic and social progress," said Tong Yun, a professor with the College of International Tourism and Public Administration at Hainan University, noting the trend mirrors the country's consumption upgrading and evolving public lifestyles.
"Driving this boom are the steady rise in residents' disposable income and ongoing improvements to the paid leave system," he said. "Travel has become an active choice for residents to expand their life experiences and improve the quality of life."
The summer travel boom is also a result of the coordinated development of China's comprehensive transportation network and the cultural tourism sector, Tong said. "The super-sized modern transportation network, paired with supply-side innovations, including summer tourism special trains and customized transport services, has converted potential travel demand into real mobility of hundreds of millions of people," he added.
Over the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), China has developed a more integrated and multidimensional transport network. By the end of 2025, China's railway network had reached 165,000 km in total operating length, and highways stretched to 5.58 million km. Certified civil airports had increased to 270.
Spanning two months, the summer travel season features a diverse passenger structure and wide-ranging travel demands, while also facing uncertainties that include typhoons, heatwaves and heavy rainfall, Tong said.
"The application of digital tools, such as big data scheduling and dynamic capacity allocation, has effectively ensured the smooth and orderly flow of large passenger volumes, marking that China's governance of super-large population mobility is transitioning from experience-based scheduling to a more precise, data-driven new stage," he said. ■
