Forget leisurely strolls. A new trend is taking Chinese travel to new heights – literally. Dubbed “Cityfly”, it sees thrill-seekers trading city sidewalks for skylines, and horizontal exploration for vertical vistas.
Following in the footsteps of “Citywalk”, Cityfly – which ranges from paragliding and skydiving to scenic helicopter rides – is fast becoming a buzzword among young Chinese travellers, reflecting a consumer shift driven by China’s burgeoning “low-altitude tourism”.
On an autumn morning, Li Duo, a woman in her early 20s from Shanghai, tried paragliding for the first time, taking off under the guidance of an instructor from a paragliding base on Mogan Mountain in Deqing County, Zhejiang Province.
“It’s simply breathtaking to glide over the rolling bamboo forests and tea gardens while the wind roars in my ears,” Li said with excitement after landing. “It unlocked a new perspective for me and gave me some incredible photos.”
Yang Aiping, manager of the paragliding base, noted that annual visitor numbers have skyrocketed from fewer than 10,000 in 2019 – when the base first opened – to over 100,000 today.
In Zhejiang Province, low-altitude tourism is transitioning from a niche adventure to a mainstream pursuit.
During the eight-day National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday earlier this month, Huzhou City – which administers Deqing – launched 16 low-altitude flight routes connecting seven sites, attracting a growing number of tourists.
Deqing and Anji, another county under Huzhou’s administration, have been designated as the provincial-level pilot zones for the low-altitude economy, reflecting strong policy backing for the sector’s rapid development in Zhejiang.
The trend is evident nationwide. In Sanya, a resort city in Hainan Province, skydiving has become one of the hottest attractions.
Zhang Enming, manager of a skydiving base there, said that the base received around 6,000 customers in the first quarter of 2025. Official data shows that Sanya’s low-altitude tourism sector served approximately 287,000 tourists in the first half of 2024, marking a 112% surge from the previous year.
The sector generated over CNY730mil (RM433.32mil) in revenue and created 2,300 jobs during the period. The robust growth has continued into this year.
Zhao Yuehua, an expert from China Development Observation’s aviation industry research centre, attributed this rise in aerial tourism’s popularity to China’s fast-developing low-altitude economy, which has reduced flight costs and sparked public enthusiasm for flying experiences.
Zhao also shared that flight costs have plummeted from around CNY3,000 (RM1,781) per person a decade ago to about CNY1,000 (RM593) today.
China’s low-altitude economy has gained unprecedented traction after being included in the government work report in 2024, which positioned it as a new growth engine.
Data shows that there are 89,000 active enterprises related to the low-altitude economy in China. Among them, approximately 11,700 were registered in the first five months of this year, a 220% year-on-year surge that surpassed the total number of registrations for the entire previous year.
Liao Jian, operations director of Wuzhizhou Island tourism zone in Sanya, said that by transforming travel from a two-dimensional to a three-dimensional experience, low-altitude tourism has bridged a gap in the market and injected new momentum into tourism consumption. – Xinhua
