This year's Qingming Festival or Tomb-Sweeping Day fell on Thursday, April 4. It is a day when Chinese people pay tribute to the dead and worship their ancestors.

With a population of 1.4 billion, China leads the world in funeral service demand with market size predicted to reach 411 billion yuan ($56.8 billion) by 2026.

Funerals are of great importance in China, as the scale of funerals and the size of tombs were once used as standards to evaluate the filial piety of the deceased's descendants.

However, the country is confronting a rapidly aging population and urban land scarcity, which has led to the average price of commercial tombs increasing. The average funeral in China is about 45 percent of the average annual salary, compared to 10 percent globally.

China has issued guidelines to promote lower-cost and space-saving funerals and burials in recent years, encouraging people to embrace eco-burials, such as tree burials, sea burials, lawn burials, flower bed burials and biodegradable urn burials.

Ecological burials, which aim to bring the deceased back to nature, require minimal or no land and are gaining more popularity among Chinese people. Many have also gradually adapted to the new way of tomb-sweeping online.