Meadin Research Releases 2026 Autumn Travel Insight Report

Key points

• Autumn 2026 travel started earlier, lasted longer and reached farther, driven by extended-holiday plans and new autumn school breaks in several regions.
• As of September 14, searches for Mid-Autumn and National Day keywords on Tongcheng rose 278% month-on-month; Qunar reported a 119% month-on-month surge in flight-and-hotel bookings.
• Bookings for domestic long-haul flights over 1,200 km rose 34% year-on-year, and hotel stays of five nights or more increased about 7 percentage points.
• The report divides the September-November autumn cycle into five phases: early autumn, layered foliage, peak golden autumn, southward shift and autumn in daily life.
• Small destinations such as Yichun gained traction, with related product bookings on Fliggy doubling as immersive nature experiences replace quick sightseeing.
• Trend one: operations shift from after-the-fact fixes to expectation management, with timed reservations, capacity controls and foliage forecasts becoming peak-season norms.
• Trend two: attraction valuation shifts from visitor volume to spend per visitor and repeat rates, requiring an 'autumn plus' model for sustainable conversion.
• Trend three: extend the viewing window through combining landscape elements, substituting cultural imagery for phenological state, and cross-regional bundling.