Traveling with Qunar: The "free ticket effect" has driven a more than two-fold increase in hotel bookings in multiple scenic areas.

The Lantern Festival falls in March this year, with warm weather bringing an early start to the "spring outing" trend. Data from Qunar Travel shows that searches for keywords such as "lantern festival" and "spring outing" on the platform have doubled, and some outdoor spring outing suitable scenic areas have seen a large influx of visitors. Many scenic areas, including Mount Lu, have announced free admission in March, leading to a rapid increase in the popularity of these destinations. Data from the platform also shows that hotel bookings around Mount Lu have increased fivefold in just one week, while hotels in Jiujiang have seen a 2.6-fold increase. Hotels around free admission scenic areas in Anhui's Ma'anshan and Henan's Jiaozuo have also seen bookings increase by over 3 times and 2 times respectively.