China’s Cultural and Tourism Market Booms During May Day Holiday, Fosun Tourism Delivers Outstanding Performance
During this year’s May Day holiday, China’s cultural and tourism market continued to heat up, with consumption showing a trend of "experiential, diversified and high-quality". The integration of culture and tourism was further deepened, covering coastal vacations, rural fun, folk experience and ice-snow leisure. Fosun Tourism Group’s major benchmark resorts and holiday areas accurately met market demand through innovative product formats and optimized service supply, driving core indicators such as inbound tourism, revenue and passenger flow to surge, demonstrating the strong recovery momentum and development resilience of the cultural and tourism industry.
Sanya Atlantis, a benchmark super resort under Fosun Tourism, leveraged the policy dividends of Hainan Free Trade Port to achieve remarkable results. Its inbound tourism revenue surged by 175% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026. During the May Day holiday, the resort launched a series of characteristic activities and benefits, with its inbound tourist number soaring by 90% year-on-year from May 1 to 5. Foreign tourists mainly came from Russia, South Korea and other countries and regions, with the source structure further optimized.
Xinhua News Agency reports that Sanya Atlantis upgraded 120 20th-anniversary limited sea view rooms and 20 themed suites to mark the 20th anniversary of "The Octonauts", held fan meetings and multiple themed tours, extended the opening hours of its water park and hosted a water park music festival with 11 powerful singers. These efforts drove its total holiday revenue up by 2% year-on-year, with occupancy rate rising to 95.6% and average room rate increasing by 4% year-on-year.
Lijiang Mediterranean International Resort focused on immersive intangible cultural heritage (ICH) experiences and became a popular choice for long-distance travel. It received over 30,000 tourists during the five-day holiday, with overall revenue increasing by 11% year-on-year. Relying on Lijiang’s profound Naxi folk customs and ICH heritage, the resort built a one-stop holiday system integrating daytime ICH experiences and night carnivals, effectively extending tourists’ stay time and driving secondary consumption.
Club Med’s domestic resorts also performed brilliantly, with total revenue increasing by 6% year-on-year and average occupancy rate rising by 5.7 percentage points. Many resorts were nearly fully booked from May 1 to 3, reflecting the continuous release of off-peak travel demand. Guilin Resort created rural-themed experiences, achieving a 10% year-on-year revenue growth. Club Med’s urban and suburban resorts, such as MedClub Neighborhood and Day Ark, achieved an 82% occupancy rate, with overall revenue increasing by 17% year-on-year.
Hangzhou Longwu Resort, which opened on April 28, was fully booked for five consecutive days from April 30 to May 4. It held "Tea Mountain Ballad × Kongming Lantern" evening shows, combining French style with Song Dynasty charm, which was well-received by tourists. Taicang Alps International Resort also saw a booming market, with 30% year-on-year growth in passenger flow at its Alps Snow World, mainly attracting tourists from Shanghai and Suzhou.
Economic Daily notes that Fosun Tourism’s benchmark projects integrate regional characteristics with global resources, promoting the integrated development of diversified formats such as "folk custom +" and "ice and snow +". These projects not only activate regional cultural and tourism consumption vitality but also set a model for the high-quality development of China’s cultural and tourism industry, helping China’s cultural tourism shift from "traffic" to "long-term attraction". Moving forward, Fosun Tourism will continue to innovate products and optimize services, injecting new vitality into China’s cultural and tourism consumption upgrading and national strategy implementation.
