Good weather sparks people's desire for travel

The current balmy weather has ignited people's enthusiasm for travel with bookings up for outings during the Qingming Festival and May Day holidays.

Shanghai Spring Tour said bookings for the holidays had grown nearly 200 percent from the same period last year, with spring flower appreciation and hiking the most popular options.

Families with children and elderly people dominate the tourism market for the holidays, with short-distance trips particularly favored.

Shanghai Disney Resort, Chongming Island where a spring flower festival is held, and ancient towns such as Jinze and Fengjing, as well as natural attractions ioncluding Qingxi Country Park and Jiading Wisteria Garden in Shanghai are popular options, the company said.

Qunar.com said bookings for this year's Qingming Festival were popular, and air tickets to destinations such as Zhanzhang in Guangdong Province and Nyingchi in southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region had surged over 200 percent from the same period last year .

A grand cauliflower festival recently kicked off in Chongqing Municipality, drawing big crowds.

Zheng Jian

The annual cauliflower festival is held at the Chentuan Guli (literally the former residence of Chen Tuan, a Taoist master in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period) Scenic Area in Tongnan District, featuring cauliflower blooms spreading across 30,000 mu of land, and 20 cultural and tourism activities such as a group weddings, a camping festival, and a cheongsam fashion show.

Tongnan, in northwest Chongqing, is known as the "cauliflower town" in China, and the festival dates back to 2011.

Around 60 contestants in the China final of Miss Tourism Queen international were at the scenic area to promote the festival.

They will try Tongnan delicacies and participate in a health run and a pop-up activity wearing cheongsam and hanfu (traditional Chinese Han-style attire) in Shuangjiang Ancient Town.

The final will be held on Sunday.