(Yicai) Aug. 22 -- Hotels, flower vendors, and sellers of luxury goods have enjoyed a revenue bump during the Chinese version of Valentine's Day celebrated today.

Couples are marking the annual occasion of Qixi Festival by planning rural getaways, giving presents of quartz watches and emerald jewelry, and sending flowers to their partners.

Bookings for rural accommodation for today surged by more than four times on Trip.Com Group's platform from a year ago, the Shanghai-based company revealed. Reservations for high-end homestay inns that are priced over CNY1,000 (USD138) per night increased by 60 percent. Farm resorts more than doubled their corresponding numbers.

Couples from big cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Hangzhou are keen to go somewhere more quiet for the occasion. Some of the popular B&B destinations are Yunnan province’s Lijiang and Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, as well as Shandong province’s coastal tourism hub of Weihai.

Trip.Com users aged above 30 make up over three-quarters of all customers, and they tend to spend over 50 percent more than under 30-year-olds. However, this year a widening share of those looking to stay for two or more days are under 30. Interestingly, women placed more than 60 percent of the orders. 

To avoid the crowds, many couples headed out early. Chinese e-tourism website Lvmama shows that the number of travelers increased by 40 percent last weekend from a week ago. Bookings for medium- and high-end hotels surged by 52 percent.

Festivals like this are important for florists and luxury retailers. From Aug. 9 to Aug. 16, the number of flower shop items sold by e-commerce retailers on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, grew almost twofold from the pre-festival period of last year. On Aug. 16, sales of fresh flowers in the green hub of Yunnan almost tripled from a week ago.

An online seller of flowers said to Yicai that prices of Yunnan blossoms began rising two weeks ago and peaked a week after that because transport to cities takes around three to four days. This is also why prices are now much more affordable.

Fashion brands and e-commerce platforms were quick to offer discounted gifting ideas. Vipshop.Com debuted a Qixi-themed campaign on Aug. 13 to sell renowned International brands with a maximum discount of 90 percent. Intime Department Store said that almost one hundred retailers have launched exclusive Qixi deals.

E-commerce platform Vipshop.Com said that a week before Qixi, sales of watches such as quartz-powered and mechanical watches increased nearly by a quarter percent from the previous week while sales of jewelry such as necklaces moved up by almost 50 percent. Moreover, high-end sports brands recorded a more than threefold uptick in revenue and one of the quickly rising categories was sunglasses.

A research institute of e-commerce giant JD.Com said that the biggest boost was in jewelry from a week ago as sales of emerald and gold accessories surged by 90 percent. Sales of luxury bags, makeup gift boxes, as well as gold bracelets almost doubled from a week ago while sales of sunglasses, imported watches and necklace gift boxes nearly tripled.

Editors: Shi Yi, Emmi Laine