On July 17, Tongcheng Travel released the "2026 Summer Tourism Trend Report". Relying on the dual advantages of ancient capital culture and mountain ecology, Datong, Shanxi ranked seventh among the national long-distance summer tourism destinations, making it a representative summer resort city in North China that combines historical heritage with a cool climate. In addition, Lingchuan County in Jincheng ranked among the top ten popular counties for national summer tourism.

According to the report data, the platform's search volume related to "summer resort" has increased by more than 50% month-on-month over the past week, and the booking popularity of summer-themed long-distance routes in July has increased by more than 20% month-on-month. Yunnan-Guizhou, Northeast China, Inner Mongolia, and North China are the four traditional popular regions for domestic summer tourism. Datong's core summer resort labels are ancient capital culture + ecological summer resort. Relying on the millennium-old Liao and Jin ancient architecture and the mountain ecological resources of Mount Heng, it creates an integrated holiday model of "cooling + study tour". As a popular destination for reverse summer tourism, Lingchuan boasts the canyon and sea of clouds landscape of the South Taihang Mountains, paired with original Taihang ancient village homestays. With its intact native ecology and restrained commercialization, it focuses on relaxed mountain holidays. The two destinations form a differentiated summer resort supply alongside Guiyang, Qingdao, and Hulunbuir.

The Tongcheng Research Institute believes that "cool small towns" and "reverse summer resorts" have become new trends in the market, and diversified summer resort formats continue to activate summer cultural tourism consumption. Different from coastal, grassland, and karst summer destinations, Shanxi takes Datong's ancient capital long-distance tour and Lingchuan's Taihang short-distance secret land tour as two fulcrums to connect multiple resources such as millennium-old cultural relics, canyon seas of clouds, and original ancient village homestays, constructing a unique cultural and forest summer resort system in North China.