FREDERIC J. BROWN
At Mount Danxia outside the city of Shaoguan, in the northern part of Guangdong province in southern China. Mount Danxia, famed for its rugged red landscapes that emerged from river silt deposits, was one of six sites located in Brazil, China, Mexico, France's Reunion Island and the South Pacific nation of Kiribati which won World Heritage status on August 1, 2010 from a UNESCO panel meeting in Brazil, added because of their role in preserving subtropical forests and hosting flora and fauna, including 400 considered rare or threatened

Late on September 27, the Guangdong Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism released a set of figures showing that the province received 24.817 million tourist visits during the three-day Mid-Autumn holiday from September 25 to 27, an increase of 28.9% year on year on a comparable basis. Tourism spending reached Rmb12.55 billion (about HK$13.7 billion), up 27.6% from a year earlier.

Viewed purely in terms of scale, the result was impressive. But placing it alongside the Rmb30 million provincial consumer subsidy raises a question: dividing total spending of Rmb12.55 billion by the subsidy produces an apparent leverage ratio of nearly 418 times.

That figure does not stand up to scrutiny. More importantly, it overlooks a key detail not mentioned in the original presentation: the Rmb30 million subsidy was not limited to the three-day Mid-Autumn holiday. The provincial tourism authorities announced at the end of August that the money was part of the almost seven-week-long “2026 Guangdong Golden Autumn Cultural Tourism Consumption Season”, running from September 11 to October 31 and covering both the Mid-Autumn holiday and the National Day “Golden Week”. Dividing a subsidy pool covering seven weeks by total spending over a three-day holiday is fundamentally the wrong comparison. The claim of “418 times leverage” therefore falls apart at the calculation stage.

The real force behind the rise in Mid-Autumn spending was a change on the supply side.

Immersive experiences and Lingnan cultural IP

A common feature of the cultural tourism offerings across Guangdong during the holiday was their close integration with Lingnan culture. Guangzhou held a sculpture exhibition marking the 90th anniversary of the Red Army’s victory in the Long March. Shenzhen combined traditional intangible cultural heritage lantern-making with modern lighting technology to create a lantern festival. Zhuhai launched Chinese-style themed activities drawing on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, while Kaiping’s Chikan Overseas Chinese Ancient Town in Jiangmen installed a giant moon display. Shantou used the Chaoshan custom of worshipping the Moon Goddess as its central theme, creating immersive experiences at multiple venues including Zhongjun World City. Chaozhou staged a series of events, including a national autumn “Village Gala” showcase, a Mid-Autumn grassland concert and a Chaozhou opera evening.

These were not simply ticket-based attractions. Through content design, they encouraged visitors to stay longer. Restaurants along Zhongshan’s “one river, two banks” waterfront recorded higher table turnover during evening trading, although the authorities did not provide a specific figure. A ticket-recognition scheme and business alliance also encouraged visitors to travel across towns and stay overnight. Overnight visitors generally spend more per person than same-day return travellers, a common industry observation whose actual multiple varies by location and business type and has no uniform standard. This may partly explain the difference in the structure of the figures, although the growth rates for tourism revenue, at 27.6%, and visitor numbers, at 28.9%, were in fact quite close. The revenue figure cannot be broken down further without more detail on the specific spending mix. Foshan coordinated a range of businesses and activities spanning commercial districts, ancient towns, cultural and sports events and exhibitions. Lingnan Tiandi launched a series of park activities, while the new area of Happy Coast PLUS officially opened.

Shaoguan’s Danxia Mountain offered tickets at 20% off and provided free admission throughout September to students at higher education institutions in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, including Hong Kong and Macau. The policy, together with the online catchphrase “If you are not going to work, come to Danxia Mountain”, later helped make the site one of the holiday’s most popular check-in destinations. This low-threshold, high-volume strategy attracted younger visitors, with hotels, transport and food and beverage accounting for the real bulk of spending. For university students, it may also help generate repeat visits and longer-term brand loyalty.

More than 20 public cultural venues across the province extended their opening hours during the holiday. The Guangdong Museum organised activities centred on traditional festival culture, while the provincial intangible cultural heritage museum held live demonstrations of techniques including inlaid porcelain, Foshan lantern-making and Yao long-drum craft. The Sun Yat-sen Library of Guangdong invited readers to make creative mooncake models. Although spending on these public facilities does not directly generate commercial revenue, it enriched the visitor experience and indirectly supported consumption in surrounding areas.

Rural tourism emerges as a major growth area

The rural tourism segment delivered particularly strong figures. Visitor numbers at the 100 rural tourism sites and ancient villages included in the monitoring programme rose 64.2% year on year, far outpacing the province-wide increase of 28.9%.

The pace of growth suggests that rural tourism is gradually becoming one of the key engines driving Guangdong’s cultural tourism expansion. The province’s ongoing “Hundreds of Counties, Thousands of Towns and Tens of Thousands of Villages” project, which aims to promote high-quality development, appears to be showing results at this point. After substantial investment in rural infrastructure and cultural tourism upgrades, the first concentrated returns are beginning to emerge.

Several structural factors lie behind the strong growth in rural tourism. First, urban residents’ demand for getting close to nature and experiencing rural life during holidays continues to rise. Second, infrastructure upgrades over the past few years have enabled many of Guangdong’s ancient villages to accommodate visitors with medium to high spending power. Third, policy support has brought rural tourism into the promotional system and directly connected it with visitor-acquisition campaigns. The Chimelong Forest Resort in Qingyuan offered local discounted admission and a Mid-Autumn limited-time “Swan Chasing the Moon” event, showing that even high-end cultural tourism brands can expand into the rural market.

However, the high growth rate may also reflect a base effect. If the rural tourism base was relatively low last year, the year-on-year increase would be amplified. The official figures only confirm a 64.2% rise from 2025 on a comparable basis, so the possibility of minor adjustments to the statistical coverage cannot be completely ruled out. Meanwhile, promotional activities for cultural tourism routes at 121 “Village Gala” venues also show that the authorities have stepped up the systematic packaging and promotion of rural tourism.

The multiplier effect and sustainability of subsidies

That brings us back to the original claim of “418 times leverage”. In practice, the range commonly cited in the literature for the multiplier effect of cultural tourism consumption is generally about two to five times. This is not a universal standard, and the actual multiple varies by business type, location and statistical method. In broad terms, every yuan of government subsidy may generate about two to five yuan in direct tourism spending. On that rough basis, the Rmb30 million subsidy could theoretically have generated about Rmb60 million to Rmb150 million in additional direct spending—far below the scale suggested by the headline figure.

One useful point of comparison comes from the Guangdong tourism authorities themselves. During the 2025 Golden Autumn Consumption Season, they said Rmb20 million in special funds for a Guangdong Tourism Expo event generated a consumption voucher leverage effect of “more than eight times”. That “more than eight times” figure referred to direct sales at the exhibition, so it is measured on an entirely different basis from the comparison between this year’s subsidy and total Mid-Autumn spending of Rmb12.55 billion. The figures cannot be directly compared, but the example does show how far the officially cited multiple is from “418 times”.

So where did the remaining roughly Rmb12.4 billion in spending come from? The answer is a large underlying flow of visitors combined with out-of-pocket spending. As a traditional Chinese festival, Mid-Autumn has an inherent family-reunion dimension. Travelling during the holiday is in part an established demand rather than demand created by subsidies. The government support functioned more like an accelerator, bringing forward some potential spending or encouraging consumers to choose higher-grade hotels, restaurants and services.

Chimelong Ocean Kingdom in Zhuhai staged a limited-edition Mid-Autumn fireworks show, while the A-rated island attractions of Wailingding Island, Dong’ao Island and Guishan Island became popular destinations. This shows that established large-scale attractions are themselves major sources of consumption. Such projects usually require investment costs to be amortised over a relatively long period, making high admission rates during holidays vital to their full-year performance.

However, a model centred on short-term subsidies faces questions over sustainability. If subsidies are reduced or withdrawn, will consumption growth fall back? Can rural tourism maintain its current appeal without policy support? These are questions that require continued observation. The current strong growth rests on both an expansion in the supply of offerings and powerful policy support, rather than being purely the result of a natural market recovery.

What to watch next

For those monitoring investment opportunities in this sector, several indicators merit attention:

  • Performance of listed tourism companies: Pay close attention to the quarterly results of listed companies in southern China, including Lingnan Holdings (A-share, code 000524.SZ, Shenzhen Stock Exchange) and Guangzhou Restaurant (A-share, code 603043.SH, Shanghai Stock Exchange), to see whether actual revenue confirms the optimism reflected in the macro figures.
  • Penetration of the night-time economy: Can night-time cultural tourism activities in Zhongshan, Shenzhen and other places continue to draw crowds during the National Day holiday, and can higher overnight-stay rates translate into real profits for hotels?
  • Profitability of individual rural tourism projects: What are the input-output ratios of the 100 monitored rural tourism sites? Are there commercially viable models that can be replicated?
  • Policy exit timetable: The Guangdong Golden Autumn Cultural Tourism Consumption Season runs until October 31. The timing of any reduction in subsidy funding and the market response will be crucial in determining whether the sector retains momentum after subsidies are withdrawn.
  • Changes in average industry margins: Monitor changes in gross and net profit margins at listed cultural tourism companies to assess the true strength of the sector’s recovery.