Spring is the season of blossoming flowers. The Chinese enthusiasm for admiring flowers dates back thousands of years. Renowned Song statesman and poet Ouyang Xiu described in his work On the Peonies of Luoyang: "In spring, every Luoyang resident, noble or commoner, adorned themselves with peonies. When the flowers bloomed, the entire city took to the streets to celebrate. Spontaneous flower markets sprouted in ancient temples and even abandoned gardens, where tents were pitched and music filled the air."

Located in Henan Province, Luoyang was the capital of several dynasties in Chinese history including the Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907). This vivid account captures not only the folk customs of the time but also the economic activity surrounding floral festivities—a tradition that continues to thrive in modern China.

"At its core, the 'flower-admiring' economy represents contextualized emotional consumption. In 2024, the hashtag 'FlowerTherapy' raked in 10 billion views on social media platform Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok), while tickets for the East Lake Cherry Blossom Festival in Wuhan, Hubei Province, which combined aromatherapy with psychological assessments, sold out swiftly, proving that flower admiring is becoming a vehicle for emotional consumption," Huang Heshui, Director of the Research Institute for Brands and Advertising at Xiamen University, said in an interview with journal International Brand Vision.

Gen Z especially is willing to pay premium prices for experiences like "having a coffee under the cherry blossoms," Huang added.

All this combined demonstrates untapped growth potential and yet-to-be-explored commercial scenarios in the floral economy.

Cultural connotations 

Luoyang is now home to over 1,400 peony varieties across 10 categories. To attract visitors nationwide, the city has launched 10 themed events this year, including immersive flower-admiring experiences, flower poetry reciting and peony-themed markets, all centered on its floral heritage.

During this year's recent Qingming Festival holiday, which fell on April 4-6—when peonies were in full splendor there, the streets of Luoyang brimmed with tourists dressed in hanfu, the traditional attire of the Han Chinese. Some visitors took their immersive experience to the next level by sporting flower face painting. They strolled past the vibrant blossoms, browsed art markets, sampled flower-infused pastries and snapped up peony-inspired cultural-creative products.

Official data from Henan's culture and tourism department show Luoyang welcomed 3.2 million visitors over the holiday, generating 2.5 billion yuan ($345 million) in tourism revenue.

Flower-admiring activities are also gaining nationwide momentum, according to statistics from multiple booking platforms. Leading Chinese online travel agency Trip.com

revealed that searches for "flower-admiring tours" surged in late March and early April, with ticket bookings for flower-themed scenic spots showing substantial growth. Reports from Qunar, a travel services platform, stated that searches related to "flowers" grew 2.2 times year on year from February to early March. Meanwhile, online travel agency Fliggy's 2025 Spring Travel Report, released in March, showed that spring outings and flower tours in March saw a fivefold increase in popularity compared with the previous month.

A key driver behind China's booming flower admiring economy is the growing passion for traditional culture. Many flower activities are themed around the Huazhao Festival, or the "Flower Goddess Festival," a celebration dating back to the Tang Dynasty. Held annually on the 15th day of the second month in the lunisolar calendar, the festival historically saw people gathering in the countryside to admire blossoms and decorate flower branches with colorful silk strips as blessings.

The flourishing of Luoyang's peony culture is also tied to this tradition. Historical records say Tang Empress Wu Zetian hosted lavish imperial flower-admiring banquets during the festival, cementing the city's status as China's peony capital. 

The Fifth Beijing Huazhao Hanfu Culture Festival, held at Flower Wonderland in Beijing's Fengtai District, captivated visitors with its lively program, including the Twelve Flower Goddesses pageant, hanfu enthusiast parades, traditional flower pinning (which involves wearing flower hairpins), cultural performances, flower-themed marketplaces and immersive workshops. Set against spectacular floral displays, the festival revived the cultural essence of the Huazhao Festival through traditional music and dance demonstrations as well as arts and crafts.

"I'm wearing a hanfu set from China's Six Dynasties period (the third to sixth centuries) embroidered with plum blossoms, and I'm competing to be the Plum Blossom Goddess," Yu Yan, a contestant in the Twelve Flower Goddess pageant, told Beijing Review. "For me, plum blossoms symbolize resilience and integrity—as embodied by their ability to bloom through winter's harshness. Chinese poets have celebrated this spirit for centuries and this cultural legacy is exactly why we honor the Huazhao Festival today."

A candidate dressed in hanfu, the traditional attire of the Han Chinese, strikes a poses during the Twelve Flower Goddesses pageant at Flower Wonderland in Fengtai District, Beijing, on April 5  ZHANG YAGE

Fulfilling potential 

In addition to traditional culture, technological advancements, government subsidies and businesses' exploration of new consumption scenarios are also empowering the growth of the flower-admiring economy.

This spring, the city of Suqian in Jiangsu Province launched a series of tourism programs centered on flowers, rolling out 74 special activities and 24 public-benefit policies that provided tourists with accommodation and transportation subsidies for spring outings.

To better meet spring travel demand, the Suqian Culture and Tourism Group organized High-Speed Rail to Suqian's Spring—a themed event to attract visitors from across China to come and enjoy the floral displays in Suqian.

The city's Santaishan National Forest Park has become the premier destination for these visitors. Beyond flower admiring, new consumption experiences are blossoming across the park's flower fields. At the Pear Blossom and Orchid Fair in Santaishan Park, an array of gourmet food vendors gathered in one place, while flower-themed ice creams drew flocks of visitors eager to sample them. Many tourists also purchased souvenir items like stamp-collection booklets as mementos.

Thanks to advances in flower preservation and logistics, Luoyang has established "Peony Post Offices" at major viewing sites, allowing visitors to mail fresh-cut peonies to loved ones thousands of miles away while admiring the blooms in person. This poetic idea has become a hit on social media, with users flooding short-video platforms with peony-unboxing videos to show their pleasant surprises.

"The Peony Post Office serves as a pivotal link in creating new consumption scenarios," Hu Yu, Deputy Secretary General of the Henan Commercial Economics Association, told newspaper Dahe Daily. "It extends the offline peony-viewing experience to online sales, then back to offline engagement—creating a closed-loop model. By attracting visitors on-site, they can further enhance the city's cultural branding through viral content and ultimately draw more tourists."

Wang Jinwei, a professor of tourism management at Beijing International Studies University's School of Tourism Sciences, believes that the booming of flower-admiring economy perfectly aligns with seasonal consumer preferences. By designing market-oriented themes, tourist destinations can effectively stimulate customers' willingness to spend on related products and unlock consumption potential, thus achieving maximum impact through minimal effort.

"Spring blossoms can serve as the initial tourism magnet," Wang told newspaper Economic Information Daily. "But to fully invigorate seasonal consumption, local governments must strengthen policy support and put more efforts into infrastructure construction at major destinations, while businesses should develop higher-quality seasonal offerings. Only through such coordinated efforts can we bring out the sustainable economic value from this seasonal scenery."

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon 

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