With the summer holiday underway, tourism is heating up and so is the business of tourist souvenirs at the world's largest wholesale market. At the Yiwu International Trade Market in China's Zhejiang province, cups, plates, magnets and ornaments showing everything from the Eiffel Tower in Paris to the Gate of the Sun in Madrid can be found in a shop half the size of a cubicle. According to data from Yiwu, online searches for "fridge magnet" grew from March 1st to July 1st. Related orders have risen by nearly 230 percent year-on-year, with trade volumes increasing 78 percent compared with the same period last year. Merchants said that many people have travelled abroad and brought back fridge magnets, only to find that they were exported from Yiwu. They also described the sales of magnets as the barometer of other Chinese cities' tourist flows. For example, besides the key travel destinations such as Beijing, Hangzhou and Chengdu, cities like Zibo, Harbin, and Altai have been gaining in popularity recently.
JI TENGYU, Merchant, Yiwu International Trade Market "Since the TV series To the Wonder started airing, retailers have already started searching for this style of fridge magnet in the market. Customers say they plan to make a design based on some local attractions in Altai."