Based on the buying trends of Chinese travelers who will embrace the three-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday from Sunday, tourism service providers have found that short-distance tours with loose schedules are gaining in popularity.

Dating back thousands of years, the annual holiday is one of China's most traditional festivals and falls on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese lunar calendar. It is normally celebrated with family reunions, worshiping the full moon, and praying for a good harvest and happiness.

Travel portal Fliggy said that as of Sept 4, tour bookings — including hotel, car rental services and tickets for tourism attractions — have experienced double-digit growth on its platform in the recent week, when compared to pre-COVID-19 levels.

Allowing for the short duration of the holiday — from Sunday to Tuesday with Saturday for work in lieu of the day off on Monday, this year — short-distance tours to places near one's working or living cities are favored, Fliggy said. Tourism attractions with strong Chinese cultural vibes and folk activities such as temple fairs and rabbit-shaped lanterns, common traditions during this particular holiday, have received an increase in bookings for the festival.

Beijing, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen are the top five destinations this year, said Fliggy, which attributes their high popularity to the rich number of tourism resources both in the city centers and outskirts, as well as the abundance of convenient transportation options within the cities and to neighboring towns and tourist attractions.

Fliggy found its users are also focusing more on enjoying traditional rituals to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, with searches for tours concerning temple fairs, as well as moon and lantern appreciation surging on the platform by an average of 60 percent.

Customers have also shown a greater interest in taking photos wearing hanfu — traditional Chinese clothing — during their trips.

Li Qing, 33, from Shanghai said: "I've planned a family trip with my parents, husband and little daughter to Suzhou, in Jiangsu province, as the city is very close to Shanghai — roughly half an hour by high-speed train. The holiday is short and we just need a place to chill and relax."

Suzhou is Li's mother's hometown, so it's "a meaningful trip for the family to get some old-world memories during the holiday carrying meanings of reunion," she said.

Online travel agency Tuniu said travel bookings to Shanxi and Gansu provinces, which boast cultural relics of temples and Buddhist grottos with a history of thousands of years, are experiencing remarkable growth.

The company said that the surge in bookings to these destinations is mainly driven by the recent hit video game Black Myth: Wukong, which is based on the Chinese traditional novel Journey to the West, as well as people's increasing desire for experiencing cultural vibes during the holiday.

Travel agencies said many customers plan to have a longer vacation of five or even eight days by asking for several days off work following the holiday, eyeing destinations farther afield or even overseas trips.

Fliggy confirmed that overseas travel bookings for the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday this year surpassed levels during the three-day Dragon Boat Festival in June, and short-distance overseas destinations including Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and Thailand remain the top choices.