Chinese travelers are increasingly stringing together multiple destinations during the weeklong National Day holiday, boosting mid-holiday air travel and drawing more visitors to smaller cities and counties.

More than 20% of air travelers booked flights to two or more destinations during the holiday, which runs from Oct. 1 to Oct. 7, according to online travel platform Tongcheng Travel. Demand for flights in the middle of the holiday rose 35% from a year earlier.

Smaller destinations were among the biggest beneficiaries of the holiday travel boom, with data from travel platform Qunar showing that its 10 top trending scenic spots were all in county-level destinations.

In Qilian County in northwestern Qinghai province, which has a population of about 50,000, more than 100,000 tourists arrived on Oct. 3, filling local hotels and prompting authorities to house nearly 500 stranded visitors in school dormitories as temperatures fell to minus 4 degrees Celsius and snow covered nearby mountaintops.

The county’s culture and tourism department received more than 400 calls for help in seven hours, according to local authorities. Posts on Xiaohongshu, the lifestyle app also known as RedNote, showed tourists searching for rooms as hotels across the county filled up.

One traveler told domestic outlet Jimu News that he spent the afternoon and evening searching major booking platforms after arriving in Qilian from Xi’an but could not find a room. After seeing a notice from local tourism authorities, he called for help and was assigned a school dormitory room shared by four people, with new bedding provided.

Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City in central Henan province also struggled with heavy crowds, repeatedly capping admissions and suspending same-day ticket sales after interest surged 22-fold from a year earlier.

Many travelers were also going farther and staying away longer. According to Tongcheng Travel, people on multi-city trips visited an average of 1.2 more cities than in 2025, with Chengdu, Suzhou, and Wuhan among the busiest transfer hubs.

More than 70% of multi-city travelers booked both natural and cultural attractions, suggesting that many were combining different types of destinations within a single itinerary.

Interest in six- to 10-day groups and customized tours to destinations including Xinjiang, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou rose more than 60% on Tongcheng from a year earlier. Couples and families accounted for more than half of those bookings.

(Header image: Tourists visit the Zhuo’er Mountain Scenic Area in Qilian County, Qinghai province, Oct. 1, 2026. VCG)