BEIJING, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- Homestays as a new type of tourist accomodation have been booming in China, with the number of host families quadrupling to 200,000 by the end of 2017, according to figures from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Tourist homestay services are mainly grouped in east China's Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian and Jiangxi provinces, in Sichuan and Yunnan in the southwest, and Guangdong and Guangxi in the south, the ministry noted at a press conference.

The ministry called the integration of tourism, leisure and cultural experiences a developing trend in China, with a sharp increase in tourist products combining sightseeing, leisure vacations, parent-child interaction and cultural experiences.

During the National Day holidays in 2018, China recorded a total of 726 million domestic tourist trips, of which more than 90 percent involved cultural activities.