During the 2025 Spring Festival holiday, Xinjiang's tourism market witnessed a surge, with Xinjiang's Urumqi city standing out in particular in terms of winter sports tourism and inbound travel, emerging as a major highlight in the national tourism market.

Photo taken on January 30, 2025 shows ski enthusiasts enjoy skiing during the Spring Festival at the Silk Road Mountain Resort in Shuixigou Town, Urumqi County, northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (File photo)

On February 4, 2025, Ctrip released the "2025 Spring Festival Travel Summary Report," which showed that the volume of ticket orders in Xinjiang increased by 60 percent, year-on-year, while inbound travel orders increased by 58 percent. Urumqi, with its abundant winter sports resources and unique cultural charm, attracted a large number of domestic and international tourists and made it into the top three most popular winter sports destinations.

Data from Ctrip indicated that hotel orders in Urumqi increased by eight percent year-on-year, with popular scenic spots including the Silk Road Mountain Resort, Baiyun Ski Resort, and the Grand Bazaar Pedestrian Street. These attractions not only offered a variety of winter sports entertainment but also enabled tourists to deeply experience the charm of Xinjiang's winter tourism through various cultural activities.

Urumqi's inbound travel market also saw significant growth, with orders increasing by 61 percent year-on-year. The main sources of visitors were China’s Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as South Korea, the United States, and Japan. These tourists not only brought economic benefits to Urumqi but also promoted cultural exchanges and advanced the city's internationalization process.

The performance of Xinjiang's tourism market during the Spring Festival holiday demonstrated the dual appeal of “intangible cultural heritage + winter sports tourism.”

During this Spring Festival holiday, every day at 12 noon on the Grand Bazaar Pedestrian Street, the Ansai Waist Drum Dance, a national intangible cultural heritage representative project from northern Shaanxi, became a much-discussed cultural highlight of the Chinese New Year.

"We watched it on the first day of the Chinese New Year, and today we brought our relatives who came to pay New Year visits to see it again." Tourist Li Yan said that seeing such a wonderful performance in Xinjiang provided a fulfilling experience and a strong sense of the festive atmosphere.

By integrating traditional culture with modern tourism, Xinjiang successfully captured the attention of domestic and international tourists and became one of the most popular destinations in the Spring Festival tourism market.

（Source: Urumqi Evening News）