Extra-long 13 days: Tourists throng scenic spots, while scenic spot-related enterprises swarm the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
On September 25, the first day of the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, researchers from Qunar noticed that more than 20% of tourists during this holiday only booked one-way tickets, deciding their itineraries on the go.
They dare to make such arrangements because of the calendar: there are only three working days between the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day. By taking 3 days of annual leave, people can enjoy a 13-day consecutive break, which is the most generous double-holiday window in the past five years. The tip of "taking 3 days off to get 13 consecutive days off" quickly spread across social platforms, pushing the overall booking pace of air tickets and hotels far earlier than usual.
While crowds are flocking to scenic spots, the scenic spots themselves are lining up for another track. Last December, Impression Dahongpao, a company that started with a landscape live-action performance, was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, becoming the "first share of live-action performance" on the Hong Kong stock market. This January, Shaanxi Tourism rang the bell at the Shanghai Stock Exchange, making it the first newly listed cultural tourism company on the A-share market in the past five years. After that, Yangzhou Slender West Lake and Kaifeng Qingming Riverside Landscape Garden successively submitted their prospectuses to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. At the end of August, Fosun's Mediterranean Resort Group also joined the queue. The line includes state-owned enterprises, private enterprises, scenic spots, performance agencies and resorts, covering almost all major business forms of the cultural tourism industry.
Tourists crowd into scenic spots, while scenic spots crowd into the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. An extra-long Golden Week just puts these two teams in the same frame: on one side is the visible passenger flow, on the other side is the capital market's re-evaluation of the old business of "selling tickets for admission, boat rides and performances".
The Golden Week may not give an answer to how much this business is worth, but it can at least help people see its true value clearly.
A 13-day long holiday brings crowds into scenic spots
In previous years, there was usually only one travel peak during the National Day holiday, but there are two this year. According to the judgment of Tongcheng Travel, the period from September 25 to 27 is dominated by family reunions and visits to relatives, while the period from October 1 to 7 is the concentrated release of travel and vacation demands. As the holiday period extends, the travel radius also expands accordingly.
As of September 14, the booking popularity of air tickets for domestic long-haul routes over 1,200 km departing during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays increased by 34% year on year. Young people account for nearly 48% of the passengers, and parent-child families account for more than 22%. The 13-day holiday allows many people to arrange itineraries of more than 10 days for the first time. The multi-city tour and transit check-in gameplay that used to only appear in summer and winter vacations have now moved to autumn.
What is more surprising is the student group. Before this year's double holidays, more than 50 universities announced a 13-day consecutive holiday for the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day, so these young people don't even need to apply for extra leave. On the first day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the year-on-year growth rate of ticket bookings for the 13-18 age group and the 19-22 age group both exceeded 200%, leading all age groups. Young people do not have much money, but they have plenty of time. The "special forces style" multi-city check-in trend has once again become viral during this holiday.
The vacation time for primary and secondary school students is also quietly getting longer. Multiple districts in Hangzhou have arranged the autumn vacation for primary and secondary schools from September 28 to 30, connecting it with the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival, so that children can have 11 days off. This is not a temporary decision of a single city. Zhejiang is the first province in China to implement the spring and autumn vacation system for primary and secondary schools across the whole province. Later, Jiangsu, Sichuan and Anhui followed suit. By May this year, 13 provinces had implemented the spring and autumn vacation system for primary and secondary schools across their jurisdiction. When children are on vacation, their parents also need to have time off. Since March this year, at least 7 provinces including Yunnan, Guizhou, Shaanxi and Hainan have introduced measures to promote the implementation of paid annual leave. The fact that these two things are discussed at the same time is a signal that vacations are changing from an education-related topic to a consumption-related topic.
If you trace the clues from these documents, the logic is very clear. In March 2025, the General Office of the State Council issued the Special Action Plan for Boosting Consumption, encouraging the exploration of the spring and autumn vacation system for primary and secondary schools; in September of the same year, 9 departments including the Ministry of Commerce issued another document to further promote this arrangement, on the premise that the total number of vacation days and the total teaching time remain unchanged. That means the total number of holidays does not increase, they are just reallocated.
From the very beginning, the spring and autumn vacation system has obvious consumption attributes. The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan proposed to explore and implement the spring and autumn vacation system for primary and secondary school students, and this year's government work report also mentioned supporting qualified regions to promote this system. In the education system, it is a measure to reduce the academic burden and increase social practice for students. From the perspective of the cultural tourism industry, it is almost equivalent to creating several extra "small Golden Weeks".
It took only more than a year from local pilot programs to being written into the provincial government work reports. Using the term in economics, this is somewhat like a "supply-side reform of vacations". In the past, the amount of travel demand was determined by the number of existing holidays. Now, the structure of holidays is adjusted first, to see how demand can be stimulated. For cultural tourism enterprises, this is more important than one or two popular scenic spots, because it determines how many days in a year they can sell tickets.
Scenic spots are the most direct receivers of this passenger flow. Data from Qunar shows that during the 3-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, hotel bookings in Huangshan increased by 3.5 times year on year, and the number in Yixian County under its jurisdiction increased by more than 13 times. CCTV reports also mentioned that the bookings of characteristic homestays around scenic spots in Henan, Shandong and other regions are on the rise. Popular scenic spots have no available tickets, and the small cities and counties around them naturally take over the overflowing passenger flow.
The heat at the order level is also very obvious. As of September 16, the bookings of air tickets and hotels for the National Day holiday on the Qunar platform increased by 56% week on week, and the bookings of popular routes over 2000 km doubled year on year; data from Meituan shows that the bookings of air tickets for this year's Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays increased by 44% year on year.
For scenic spots, passenger flow is the most intuitive story to tell the capital market. Kaifeng Qingming Riverside Landscape Garden received about 9.6 million tourists last year, ranking fourth among all single theme parks in China; Yangzhou Slender West Lake Scenic Area attracts more than 7 million tourists every year. These numbers were all written into the prospectuses as they are, becoming the first brick for them to knock on the door of the capital market.
Scenic spots are queuing up for listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange
Let's first talk about Shaanxi Tourism, which has gone the farthest. This company, whose main business is the "Song of Everlasting Sorrow" performance at Huaqing Palace and the cableway service at Huashan Mountain, has been planning for listing since it was listed on the New Third Board in 2017, and has submitted listing applications three times in eight years.
In May 2025, its application was accepted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange, becoming the first cultural tourism enterprise in China to be accepted since the "827 New Deal" in 2023. It was officially listed on the main board on January 6 this year, with its share price rising by 71.56% on opening and a total market value of 106.72 billion yuan. The subscription phase was even more lively: the number of valid subscription accounts reached 13.9053 million, and the winning rate was only about 0.013%, which means that only 1 out of 10,000 accounts could win the subscription. The "Song of Everlasting Sorrow" performance was polished for 18 years, and finally brought a local cultural tourism enterprise into the A-share market.
The market's interpretation of this listing is quite restrained. Some views believe that the approval of Shaanxi Tourism's listing is more of an "exception" rather than a "turning point". It is supported by the combination of local state-owned enterprise background, scarce assets and stable profitability, and does not mean that the A-share market has fully opened its gate for the cultural tourism industry. At present, the focus of A-share IPO examination is still tilted towards hard technology, and the threshold for traditional consumer enterprises like cultural tourism to enter the A-share market remains high.
The other path leads to Hong Kong. Impression Dahongpao originated from a landscape live-action performance that premiered in Wuyi Mountain in 2010, jointly created by Zhang Yimou, Wang Chaoge and Fan Yue. In terms of box office revenue in 2024, "Impression Dahongpao" ranks third among all landscape live-action performances in China, only behind "Song of Everlasting Sorrow" and "Impression Lijiang".
The company was listed on the New Third Board in 2017, and started the listing counseling process for the Beijing Stock Exchange in 2020. It was finally listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on December 22, 2025, with its public offering part subscribed for 3397.48 times. It is rare in the cultural tourism industry that a single performance can incubate a listed company.
The story of Yangzhou Slender West Lake is related to boats. Slender West Lake Cultural Tourism is the only licensed operator of water sightseeing cruise in Yangzhou, holding the 20-year exclusive operation right of water cruise in the Shugang-Slender West Lake Scenic Area. In 2025, the company's revenue was about 141 million yuan, and its profit was about 51.99 million yuan. In terms of cruise ticket sales, it ranks second in the water tour market of Jiangsu Province, accounting for about 16% of the provincial market share.
Its listing process is not fast. Slender West Lake Cultural Tourism was listed on the New Third Board in May 2017, submitted its first listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in September 2025, resubmitted the application at the end of March this year, and obtained the overseas issuance and listing filing notice from the China Securities Regulatory Commission in July. It is only one step away from the main board, the hearing.
It is worth mentioning the presence of the primary market: in June 2023, Jiangsu Grand Canal (Yangzhou) Cultural Tourism Development Fund subscribed for 10% of the shares of Slender West Lake with about 28.55 million yuan, corresponding to an overall valuation of about 300 million yuan at that time. The company's chairman Xu Shunmei is 55 years old this year. She started her career as a tour guide at scenic spots, and created the brand "Slender West Lake Boat Lady" on her own.
Qingming Riverside Landscape Garden is the latest case this year. In June this year, Kaifeng Qingming Riverside Landscape Garden Co., Ltd. submitted a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with China Merchants Securities International as the exclusive sponsor, sprinting for the "first share of Henan cultural tourism". Before that, it had accepted the A-share listing counseling since 2020, and completed 23 phases of counseling work. The government work report of Kaifeng this year also clearly proposed to support Qingming Riverside Landscape Garden Co., Ltd. to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange within the year.
Why are more and more scenic spots choosing the Hong Kong stock market? An investment banker said that cultural tourism enterprises face high uncertainty in A-share IPO, and the Hong Kong stock market is a better choice from the perspective of liquidity. The heat of the Hong Kong stock market itself also provides support: in the first seven months of this year, 101 companies were listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange through IPO, raising about 328.214 billion Hong Kong dollars.
More scenic spots are still on their way to listing. Yuntai Mountain in Henan has been on the 17-year long journey to listing since it completed share reform in 2009, and Yinji Cultural Tourism has also set its listing schedule long ago. If you look at these companies together, you will find that most of them have several common points: they were once listed on the New Third Board, local state-owned assets are involved in them more or less, and they hold a unique resource or IP that others cannot obtain.
What is the capital betting on
The secondary market reacts the fastest. On September 9, the tourism and hotel sector rose in the short term, Guilin Tourism hit the daily limit, Qujiang Cultural Tourism, Tianmu Lake and Jinling Hotel followed the uptrend. Then Guilin Tourism hit the daily limit for four consecutive trading days, and scenic spot companies such as Yunnan Tourism and Zhangjiajie also strengthened at the same time.
The CSI Tourism Index started at 2291.17 points on September 1, and hit the highest point of 2388.7 points on September 8. Shaanxi Tourism, which was listed not long ago, also joined the uptrend, with its share price rising by 10.01% on September 18. In addition to the holiday effect, local policies are also increasing support. Guangxi issued the "15th Five-Year Plan" for the construction of a strong tourism region, proposing to promote the transformation from a sightseeing tourism destination to a leisure and vacation tourism destination.
This round of market trend has its own rhythm. A research report reviewed the data from 2016 to 2025: the probability of the CSI Tourism Index rising in early and mid-September is 70%, while the probability drops to 20% in late September, showing the seasonal pattern of "expectation first, data verification, cashing before the holiday". In other words, the secondary market is trading on the expectation of the holiday, while the primary market and industrial capital are following another slower logic.
What moves slower than the rise and fall of stock prices and can better explain the situation is the action on the asset side. On August 28, the Mediterranean Resort Group under Fosun International submitted a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, planning for independent listing on the main board. The group's core brand Club Med is the world's largest all-inclusive resort brand in terms of 2025 turnover, operating 69 high-end resorts around the world.
The group's revenue increased from 1.86 billion euros in 2023 to 1.95 billion euros in 2025, and its adjusted EBITDA reached 390 million euros in 2025, with the profit margin rising to 20.2%. At the same time, the Sanya Atlantis REITs project has been submitted to the Shanghai Stock Exchange at the end of March this year. The light asset and heavy asset businesses are moving towards the capital market respectively.
The model of taking light assets with brand and operation capabilities to IPO, and putting heavy assets into REITs to obtain stable dividends is becoming more and more common in the cultural tourism industry. The policy side also leaves room for this: the relevant notice of the National Development and Reform Commission in 2024 has included hotels within the scenic spot planning scope with the same property right ownership into the asset scope of REITs. For cultural tourism groups that hold a large number of scenic spots and hotels, this means an additional channel for exit and financing.
What do these assets have in common? Slender West Lake holds a 20-year exclusive operation right, Shaanxi Tourism has the "Song of Everlasting Sorrow" polished for 18 years, and Impression Dahongpao relies on a hard-to-replicate landscape live-action performance. Scarcity is the first story they tell to the capital. The second story is about cash flow: the scenic spot business has fast cash return, but it has strong seasonal features. Slender West Lake has warned in its prospectus that the first quarter and the fourth quarter are usually off-seasons.
The explosive passenger flow during one Golden Week cannot support the valuation. What the capital really cares about is whether the passenger flow can be averaged across the whole year. Tianfeng Securities predicts that referring to the booking performance during the autumn vacation in some regions last year, multiple regional small travel peaks are expected to form from October to November. Policies like the spring and autumn vacation system, which seem to have nothing to do with the capital market, are thus connected with valuation.
Local state-owned assets are an unignorable force in this queue. The companies under the Yangzhou municipal government hold a total of about 89.99% of the shares of Slender West Lake, the actual controller of Shaanxi Tourism is the SASAC of Shaanxi Province, and Kaifeng state-owned assets also have shares in Qingming Riverside Landscape Garden.
For local governments, pushing scenic spots to the capital market is also a way to revitalize the stock cultural tourism assets. Local industrial funds like the Grand Canal Cultural Tourism Fund