Camping, cycling, lure fishing become popular activities among public as consumption of outdoor leisure products takes off

In the spring of 2022, citizens in Beijing have gotten increasingly more engaged in outdoor sporting activities. Camping, cycling, and lure fishing are now regarded as options that are much more preferred than short one-day tours when people make travel plans for outings in and around the city.

Photo shows a campsite in Xiahe county of Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China's Gansu Province. (Photo/Xinhua)

Several parks inside Beijing, including Beijing Wenyuhe Park, the Grand Canal Forest Park, and the Central Green Forest Park in the city’s Tongzhou district, have become popular camping sites.

Beijing Wenyuhe Park, located at the junction of Beijing’s Chaoyang district, Shunyi district and Changping district, opened a 30,000-square-meter camping site during this year’s Qingming Festival in early April, providing spaces for local residents to enjoy their vacation time.

Statistics released by online travel agency Ctrip indicated that the number of bookings for camping-related tourism products on the platform during this year’s Qingming Festival increased threefold year-on-year.

A report by smzdm.com, a shopping guide platform in China, observed that during a shopping festival on March 8, 2022, the popularity of camping equipment, including moisture-proof camping mattresses, camping tents, and outdoor jackets, soared by 44 percent, 67 percent and 107 percent, respectively, on various online marketplaces.

Zhang Yu’ang, head of the business operations department of smzdm.com, noted that it was not until recent years that camping started to emerge as a popular leisure activity among the general public. Camping equipment and camping sites, as well as tips regarding how to use camping equipment and set up camping tents, are hot topics among users on the platform, Zhang added.

“Leisure activities, including taking a walk along a mountain path, cycling around in the city, and experiencing yoga during a camping trip, are all forms of sports tourism. For a new type of sports enthusiast, these sporting activities are fun and can be integrated into daily life, becoming a new mass leisure activity,” said Feng Rao, head of the tourism research center at Mafengwo, an online travel platform.

Xia Dongjun, a user of Mafengwo, has been engaged in various outdoor sporting activities for nearly 20 years. Last year, the man developed a fondness for lure fishing. In lure fishing, the anglers will first locate where the fish are, and then use various kinds of artificial bait to attract the fish, after which one can finally catch a fish, he explained.

Lure fishing is one of the outdoor sports that have seen the fastest consumption growth in the most recent two years. “The price of lure fishing rods increased more than three times in the most recent one-year period. Meanwhile, an increasing number of young enthusiasts, after putting aside their ski suits as the winter season ends, immediately embarked on a lure fishing journey upon the arrival of the spring season,” said Xia.

Bicycles, which were regarded as merely a means of transport in the past, have become popular consumer goods, and are now regarded as a symbol of sports, leisure and related culture. In recent years, sales of medium- and high-end bikes have maintained strong growth momentum, especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when there was a noticeable increase in the number of people who started to ride bikes more often.