A view of Jiangling village, one of the tourist destinations in Wuyuan East China's Jiangxi Province Photos: VCG

As spring comes, fluxes of visitors and tourists in city parks, scenic spots and rural villages have been seen enjoying their weekends. Not only many famous scenic spots have introduced their own special routes, but residents from across the country also spontaneously planned their own blossom-tourism routes and posted them on social media.

Often dubbed as the most beautiful season of the year, spring is turning every field and meadow into a sea of beautiful flowers, including Beijing. 

With the rise in temperatures, some of the flowers in Yuyuantan Park, National Botanical Garden, Jingshan Park, Beihai Park and Sanlihe Park have blossomed in the Chinese capital. Going to various parks to enjoy the flowers has become a popular outdoor activity for many people. 

Feel the moment

Related hashtags for blossom season have topped the China's popular platform Little Red Book with more than 1.2 billion views. 

Netizens shared their own spring flower viewing routes in Beijing, and received tens of thousands of likes for that.

Beihai Park, the Olympic Forest Park, the National Botanical Garden, the Summer Palace, the Beijing Garden Expo Peach Valley, the Temple of Heaven are among the favorites.

"We heard from our friends in Beijing that the peach blossoms in Yuyuantan Park are the most beautiful. We can't believe that it is so amazing and beautiful here and it is better to come here on a weekday because there are less people," Niki and Abby, two international students in Beijing, told the Global Times on Thursday.

While enjoying the beautiful flowers, the city's major parks and scenic areas have also launched a series of traditional cultural activities.

The Temple of Heaven will hold 12 spring-themed events from March to April. 

In mid-April, Jingshan Park will host the Jingshan Peony Culture and Art Festival that will tell the park's history and culture, showcasing the profound cultural connotation through exhibitions, interactive activities and commercial events.

In addition, the Plum Blossom Cultural Festival will be held in the Beijing Ming City Wall Ruins Park, Yuetan Park and Wanshou Park. 

Tourists visit as cherries blossom in Yaojia village in Sanming, East China's Fujian Province on February 24, 2023. Photos: VCG

More than flowers 

As March generally marks the booming flowering season in China, the influx of tourist crowds is also an opportunity for the rural villagers to strengthen their businesses as well.

In Wuyuan, East China's Jiangxi Province, rapeseed terrace fields in the Huangling area are now in their peak blooming period, with the picturesque landscape has been attracting tourists from all over the country.

A couple from Anyang, Central China's Henan Province, told the Global Times on Thursday that next week they are planning a 10-hour road trip of more than 1,000 kilometers to get to Wuyuan only for the rapeseed flowers.

"We were supposed to plan our trip during the upcoming Qingming ­Festival, but we were worried that it might be overcrowded at that time, so we changed the date of our trip," ­Anyang tourist Liang Yiqing told the Global Times.

This place has been known for its rich variety of flowers, a Wuyuan local named Zou Chenzhi said.

Since February, people can appreciate plum blossoms in full bloom, followed by rapeseed flowers, peach blossoms and pear blossoms in March, and cherry blossoms and azaleas in April and May.

Data from Mafengwo, a major Chinese travel and ticketing platform, recently showed that the number of customer searches for "blossom trips" and related terms have doubled compared with last week.

Travel routes in eastern and southwestern China are especially popular among tourists, another Chinese ­traveling and ticketing platform Tuniu noted.

In Yinghualing village, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, the village has created their own cherry blossom festival to boost their tourism business.

"Our village started the cherry blossom festival as early as in 2019, and since then we've witnessed thousands of tourists heading to the village during the weekends and on holidays in the blossoming season every year," villager Zheng Daolin noted.

The cherry blossom fields are a business in the village attracting tens of thousands of tourists and bringing economic benefits to the villagers for millions of yuan every year.

And the trick, as the local villagers told China News Service in a recent interview, is that they are now working on a new business model of combining tourism with the local cultural specialties.

"Tourists like our pickles, ground tofu, cold noodles and other snacks. I normally earn hundreds of yuan in one day during the holidays with my food stall," said Zheng.