英语新闻丨Summer's here, school's out, with students hitting the road
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Welcome to CD Voice, looking at China and the world from different perspectives. Summer's here, school's out, with students hitting the road. As graduation season and summer vacation get underway in June and July, students are embarking on trips to domestic and overseas destinations with their peers.

Boosting the vibrancy of the tourism market, industry players found theme parks, museums, cultural venues, internet-famous scenic spots, trendy business districts, as well as concerts, music festivals and other activities are all popular choices for students, and they have been increasingly pursuing personalised, flexible and new experiences.

In June, the average airfare and hotel prices domestically are nearly 40% lower than those in July and August. For some high school graduates and college students, their peak travel period starts after the National College Entrance Examination on June 10 and lasts until around July 10, said Qunar, a Beijing-based online travel agency.

Young consumers have become the main force in the cultural tourism market, boosting demand for more personalised and quality travel experiences. And more tourists are willing to explore domestic small towns and seek out some emotional satisfaction during their trips, said Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Academy.

For graduation travel, being together is the most important factor for students. For young travellers aged between 22 and 25, their hotel booking volumes in June jumped 22% year on year. Among these, hotel bookings for multiple guests accounted for over 70% of the total Kunar found.

In terms of hotel bookings, the top five most popular domestic destinations for graduation travel in June are Beijing, Shanghai , Jiangsu Province, Guangzhou , and Chengdu . Hotel bookings in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region grew the fastest, Kunar found.

Meanwhile, since the beginning of this year, there has been a significant increase in tourist demand for niche and in-depth travel products, said Tuniu Corp, a Suzhou-Jiangsu-based online travel agency. Going for traditional cultural elements, trips that can help avoid summer heat and seaside leisure trips are among sought-after choices for visitors who take journeys in summer, said Qi Qiongguang, vice president of Tuniu.

In addition, booking volumes of outbound travel orders by graduates and college students have surged this summer, thanks to multiple countries' favourable visa policies offered to Chinese visitors. This summer, some niche and emerging overseas destinations have received increasing attention from Chinese tourists, Qi said.

In particular, bookings of travel packages to Belgium, Luxembourg, Zambia and Greece have more than doubled year on year, and the bookings of travel packages to destinations such as Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan have jumped significantly to newfound.

For hotel bookings, some top overseas destinations include Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, and the popularity of the countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative has been growing the fastest. Chinese visitor bookings for travel products to Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, Georgia and Egypt have soared by more than tenfold over last year, Kunar found.

In another development, the peak season for the domestic air travel market is approaching, and carriers have ramped up efforts to launch new flights or boost frequency on existing routes bound for popular tourist destinations.

Guangzhou-based China Southern Airlines plans to boost the frequency of flights connecting Beijing with Baisheng Changbai Shan Airport and Altai Shuedu Airport . The carrier said it will operate wide-body aircraft on popular routes such as those connecting Urumqi with Guangzhou and Shenzhen of Guangdong Province .

Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, and the number of wide-body aircraft used is likely to reach a new high. For international flights, it plans to launch new flights connecting Guangzhou with Almaty, Kazakhstan on Wednesday, and new routes connecting Guangzhou with Uzbekistan's capital, Tashkent, on June 30th.

as well as a new service linking Harbin, Heilongjiang province with Vladivostok, Russia on July 1st. That's all for today. For more news and analysis, buy the paper until next time.