4 days ago
Long-stay tourism boom ignites ‘cool economy' in China highlands
An aerial photo taken on July 18, 2025 shows a local Yizu Dage team performing during a parade show on the ancient street of Nanzhao in Weishan Yi and Hui Autonomous County, Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Yunnan Province. – Xinhua photo
KUNMING (July 26): At his guesthouse in southwest China's Kunming, Zhang Cheng wiped down the counter in preparation for the next wave of arrivals, as the country's highland summer migration unfolded, a seasonal drift measured not in days but in months.
'Since summer began, we've had almost no vacancies,' he said.
A steady stream of guests from the sweltering nearby regions of Sichuan and Chongqing is replacing the usual ebb and flow of tourists in this capital city of Yunnan Province.
As scorching heat blankets much of China, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, with average summer temperatures of 15 to 21 degrees Celsius, are experiencing the explosive growth of 'cool summer residencies'.
Yunnan alone hosted 2.8 million long-stay visitors in the first half of 2025, a surge of 45.4 per cent year on year.
These visitors stayed an average of 91 days, 11 days longer than the previous year.
In the province's Qujing City, famed for its cooler summers, companies like Licheng Residential Leasing are transforming idle homes into managed residences.
This summer, Licheng has provided over 100 beds and three meals daily through contracted residential homes in the city's Niujie community, hosting over 200 guests so far.
Industry experts believe that traditional tourism often funnels spending into transportation and tickets, limiting local economic benefits, whereas tourism engaging local residents retains more spending within the community.
In Qujing, for example, dining accounts for 40 per cent of long-stay visitors' spending, vastly exceeding the 10 per cent typical of short-stay tourists.
The city welcomed 2 million long-stay visitors last summer, peaking at 270,000 daily, generating 23.6 billion yuan (around US$3.3 billion) in revenue.
Leveraging its national forest park, Xishui County in Guizhou has developed 28 summer residence projects across six townships, now housing 36,000 households, mostly from other provinces.
Since June, hotels and homestays have reported peak seasons.
Dai Bin, head of the China Tourism Academy, highlighted the shift of the tourism model 'from simply leveraging cool climates to integrating culture, wellness and learning'.
He cited the example of children joining forest rangers for plant identification in a nature science camp while parents learn local crafts, as well as one in Yunnan's Dali that combines cool air with holistic healing through yoga in the forest.
Recognising the potential, China's National Development and Reform Commission issued guidelines in 2023 to boost summer tourism, urging better products and infrastructure.
According to Rao Xiangbi, deputy director of Yunnan's culture and tourism department, long-stay visitors now flock not just from nearby Sichuan and Chongqing, but increasingly from Guangdong, Zhejiang, and even the northernmost Heilongjiang Province, with over 80 per cent being young and middle-aged people.
Experts from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation have noted that such climate-adaptive tourism is a growing necessity globally and is poised to become a defining future trend as climate change intensifies. – Xinhua China highland Kunming Summer tourism Xinhua
