Chinese road trippers are swapping hotel rooms for the back seats of their own cars, folding them flat into beds and parking overnight at service stations, scenic car parks and even hotel grounds, while still using the hotel’s showers and toilets for free.
中国的自驾游客正放弃酒店客房，转而把自家汽车的后排座椅放平当床，夜宿高速服务区、景区停车场甚至酒店院内，却依然免费使用酒店的淋浴和厕所。
National travel volumes keep climbing. In the first half of 2026, domestic trips reached 3.463 billion, up 5.4 percent year on year; July alone brought 1.23 billion trips, up 18.7 percent, with both trip numbers and tourism revenue hitting five-year highs for the month.
全国出游人次持续攀升。2026年上半年，国内居民出游人次达34.63亿，同比增长5.4%；仅7月一个月就有12.3亿人次出游，同比增长18.7%，出游人次与收入均创下近五年同期新高。
How a Car Becomes a Bed
车是如何变成床的
By the end of June 2026, China’s electric vehicle fleet reached 48.97 million, 13.19 percent of all vehicles nationwide; new electric registrations in the first half of the year totalled 5.195 million, 49.42 percent of every new car registered. Mid-size and large SUVs sold 1.23 million units over the same six months.
截至2026年6月底，全国新能源汽车保有量达4897万辆，占汽车总量的13.19%；上半年新注册登记新能源汽车519.5万辆，占新车注册量的49.42%。中大型SUV与大型SUV两个细分市场上半年合计销量达123万辆。
As Southern Weekly’s Nanzhou Zhidao column reports, bigger bodies make the trend workable. Many large SUVs now run longer than 5 metres with wheelbases above 3 metres, room enough for adults to lie flat; some manufacturers advertise a “bed at the touch of a button”, joining the front and back seats into a mattress longer than 1.8 metres without even removing the headrests.
据南周知道报道，车身尺寸的扩大是这一趋势得以实现的基础。目前市场上不少大型SUV车长超过5米，轴距也多在3米以上，足以让成年人平躺；一些品牌更是主打“一键成床”功能，无须拆卸头枕，前后排座椅即可直接拼接成一张超过1.8米的大床。
Power was the remaining obstacle. A petrol car idling its engine to run air conditioning overnight burns fuel and risks carbon monoxide poisoning, but an electric vehicle’s battery can keep the cabin cool for hours while parked; some models add a camping mode to hold a steady temperature, and several can discharge power outward for a camp stove or a light.
驻车用电曾是最后一道难题。传统燃油车夜间开空调必须让发动机怠速运转，既费油又有一氧化碳中毒的风险，而新能源车的动力电池在停车状态下也能让空调持续运转数小时；不少车型还配备“露营模式”，维持车内恒温，部分车型更具备对外放电功能，可供户外煮食或照明使用。
Campsites have also caught up. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued grading standards for self-drive and camper-van sites in 2019, and 79 high-quality campsites, rated 4C or 5C, have since opened across four rounds of approvals, as more local governments fold such sites into their tourism infrastructure plans.
营地建设也在逐步跟上。文化和旅游部于2019年发布了自驾车旅居车营地质量等级划分标准，此后分四批共推出79家4C级和5C级高品质营地，越来越多地方政府也将此类营地纳入旅游基础设施规划。
The Hotel That Fought Back with CCTV
用监控录像反击的酒店
The trend arrives at an awkward time for hotels. Guojin Securities recorded national occupancy at 62.3 percent for the week of 6 to 12 July, down 3 percent on the week before, with average room rates down about 3 percent year on year and revenue per available room down 5.9 percent. Separate data from Hotel Home put occupancy, average rate and RevPAR all down year on year between late June and late July, and Huazhu Group reported second-quarter China occupancy of 79.8 percent, its sixth straight quarter of year-on-year decline.
这股风潮来得不是时候。国金证券监测显示，7月6日至12日这一周，全国酒店平均入住率为62.3%，环比下降3%，平均房价同比下降约3%，每间可出租客房收入同比下降5.9%。酒店之家的数据则显示，6月底至7月底期间，全国酒店RevPAR、入住率、平均房价均同比下滑；华住集团公布其第二季度中国区入住率为79.8%，已连续六个季度同比下降。
Some car-bed travellers no longer book a room at all, parking instead in a hotel’s own car park and using its toilets and hot water free of charge all day. Guides circulating on social media name specific hotels as lenient on parking, generous with hot water, or easy to charge a car at, drawing car-bed travellers to cluster around them.
部分床车游客干脆不再订房，直接把车停进酒店停车场，整天免费使用酒店的厕所和热水。社交平台上流传的所谓“驻车攻略”，专门标注哪些酒店管理宽松、热水充足、方便充电，吸引大批床车车主扎堆前往。
Two milder patterns of free-riding have also emerged. One is sleeping three nights in the car and booking a single hotel night purely to use the washing machine and take a proper shower; the other is a group travelling together booking only one room, with the rest slipping in from the car park to share its bathroom in turns.
还有两种程度较轻的“蹭”法。一种是“睡三天床车，住一晚酒店”，目的只是用酒店的洗衣机和热水澡好好休整一次；另一种是结伴出游却只订一间房，其余人从停车场直接进入房间，轮流使用卫浴设施。
The tension surfaced publicly in late July, when a group from Chongqing staying in Yining, Xinjiang, found only one room available and two of the women in the party slept in their car; the hotel charged ¥150 at checkout for what it called a car-parking accommodation fee. Public sympathy sided with the guests at first, until the hotel released CCTV footage showing more than a dozen people from the group’s three cars setting up sunshades in the courtyard, cooking with a staff rice cooker and monopolising the public washing machines over two days, after which opinion swung the other way.
这一矛盾在7月底公开化。重庆一行游客在新疆伊宁入住时，因酒店仅剩一间客房，一行人中两名女士只能在车内过夜，退房时被酒店收取150元“车上住宿费”。舆论起初一边倒地同情游客，直到酒店放出监控录像，显示这行人三辆车、十几人曾在院内搭起天幕、用员工电饭锅做饭、占用公共洗衣机长达两天，舆论风向这才反转。
Blaming car-bed travellers alone oversimplifies the industry’s troubles. Hotels with 15 rooms or more grew from 312,000 in the first week of 2023 to 419,000 by the twentieth week of 2026, a rise of about 30 percent in three years, and the national room count reached roughly 19.79 million by the middle of this year, a record high; supply has outpaced demand, and car-bed travel is only adding to the pressure.
将酒店业的困境完全归咎于床车游客，未免过于简单化。全国15间客房以上的酒店数量从2023年第一周的31.2万家增至2026年第20周的41.9万家，三年增长约30%；今年上半年全国酒店客房总数已达约1979万间，创历史新高。供给已经超过需求，床车自驾游只是加重了这一压力。
Some operators are already unbundling the stay itself, pricing showers, water refills, laundry and parking separately with clear limits for non-guests rather than folding them into a single room rate, while national policy is pointing travellers elsewhere; nine government departments ordered in June 2026 that proper camper-van sites be built along scenic routes and on city outskirts, complete with water, power, showers and parking. The back seat folds into a bed easily enough; what China’s roads still need is somewhere official for it to park.
一些酒店已经开始把原本打包在房价里的服务拆分定价，淋浴、补水、洗衣、停车等单独收费并对非住客加以限制，而非继续笼统地算进一间房的价格里；国家层面的政策也在引导游客转向别处——2026年6月，商务部等九部门发文，要求在风景道沿线和城市近郊建设配套水电、淋浴、停车设施齐全的正规旅居车营地。后排座椅放平成床并不难，难的是，中国的公路上仍然缺少一个可以名正言顺停靠的地方。
