Focus Interview丨The integration of culture and tourism inspires new national trends and unlocks consumption keywords for the Year of the Dragon during the Spring Festival
The sun and the moon are beginning a new era, and the world is springing again. During the Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon, China is filled with a strong festive atmosphere and strong economic vitality. The 2024 Spring Festival travel data is eye-catching. From the first to the eighth day of the first lunar month, the cross-regional movement of people across society reached as high as 2.311 billion. Some people were visiting relatives and friends, and some were traveling. In particular, the popularity of dragon culture has added fuel to cultural tourism consumption in various places. Tourist attractions have come up with various designs and activities containing dragon elements to stimulate new national trends. Merchants also make full use of the charm of traditional culture and use various Year of the Dragon creativity to attract citizens and tourists to come and spend money.
Speaking of this year’s Spring Festival, what is the most impressive thing? Mainly a prosperous one. Night markets, business districts, and scenic spots are all filled with two words: popularity. During the Spring Festival, people who have worked hard for a year rush back to their hometowns from all directions to reunite with their relatives. This is the year of reunion that everyone has been waiting for.
In the twelfth lunar month, the time to get home is counting down. A bus full of migrant workers from Guang'an, Sichuan, traveled more than 1,200 kilometers from Fuyang, Anhui, to send those homesick people back to their relatives. The homesickness that had been brewing for a year was finally released at the moment when I saw my family.
On New Year's Eve, the red characters "福" convey the joy of the festival. In Daliuzhuang Village, Wuyi County, Hebei Province, the home of 83-year-old Guo Shunyi is particularly lively. Fifteen people from five families with four generations under one roof gather together to celebrate the New Year. This is the most important day of the year for this big family.
This Spring Festival, in order to celebrate the long-awaited reunion, relatives and friends gather together, the small family becomes a big family, and the small dining table becomes a big dining table. In order to let everyone have a good reunion dinner during the New Year, in addition to dining in restaurants, many catering companies have launched personalized catering services such as door-to-door food delivery and home-cooked reunion dinners by chefs. In some places, door-to-door cooking has become a trend.
Returning to hometowns for reunions, visiting relatives and friends, if you want your holiday life to be rich enough, you have to go out for a walk. Different from the Spring Festival holiday in previous years, this new vacation mode of "returning to hometown + traveling" has become the choice of many people.
What to do during these eight days of holiday filled with Chinese New Year flavor?
During the Spring Festival Gala, there was a scene in which the whole audience burst into laughter about the famous poem, and it was recreated by tourists in the Tang Dynasty Evernight City in Xi'an.
During the Spring Festival this year, the tourism market is extremely hot, and various places are doing their best to attract tourists.
Ordinary people have endorsed their hometown and extended sincere invitations to tourists from all over the country.
The hot tourism market is ushering in recovery and transformation with people's participation and choice.
During the Spring Festival holiday, the ice and snow craze inspired by the Winter Olympics continues. For southern tourists, it has become a new fashion to celebrate the New Year and welcome the New Year in the ice and snow. During the Spring Festival, ice and snow resorts in the north received an average of more than 1.1 million tourists from the south every day; Harbin continued its previous tourism enthusiasm, welcoming more than 7.55 million tourists in the six days before the Spring Festival. This Spring Festival, Erbin is not only popular himself, but also with other "old irons" in the Northeast region. On the tourism platform, Spring Festival hotel bookings in Heilongjiang Suihua, Liaoning Fushun, Liaoning Shenyang, Jilin Siping, and Heilongjiang Heihe all increased more than 10 times compared with last year.
Compared with 2019, the number of people traveling during the Spring Festival in 2024 has increased by 45%. The continuous enrichment of consumer supply has also provided people with more fresh travel pictures.
This Spring Festival, it has become fashionable to celebrate the New Year with the national treasure panda. Bookings for homestays around the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Base have increased nearly 10 times compared with the same period last year.
You can also celebrate the New Year at sea. During the Spring Festival, nearly 4,600 tourists boarded a large domestic cruise ship to see the world. The novelty added a bit of pride. Some people also choose to experience a different flavor of the New Year on the special trains that travel across the country.
During this Spring Festival, there were more than 3.3 million searches on social platforms for “new ways to celebrate the New Year.”
This Spring Festival, more and more people are choosing to stay away from the hustle and bustle of big cities to experience a different New Year flavor full of local characteristics. Holiday hotel bookings in many third- and fourth-tier cities have increased significantly, making them dark horses in this year’s Spring Festival travel destinations.
During this Spring Festival holiday, cultural elements have activated new enthusiasm for cultural tourism in many ancient cities. This year is the Year of the Dragon, and when you walk down the streets, you will be dazzled by all kinds of dragon elements.
With the grand debut of the Year of the Dragon, various places are using their brains and efforts to prepare articles for the Year of the Dragon and create a Dragon-flavored Spring Festival for everyone.
In Inner Mongolia, the ice dragon boat race and drum racing made the Year of the Dragon very lively.
Some people appreciate the dragon culture in the noisy atmosphere of gongs and drums, while others experience the dragon in the quiet museum. "Blue and white red dragon pattern porcelain plate" and "gilt bronze Ruyi dragon pattern saddle", Qinghai Provincial Museum has dragon elements from different periods. The display of cultural relics greatly amazed visitors.
During the Spring Festival holiday, the public spent their time nourished by dragon culture. The Year of the Dragon speaks of the dragon. In the streets, alleys, lantern festivals and temple fairs, many designers and businesses have also integrated the dragon, a traditional cultural element with unique Chinese characteristics, into modern life through new designs and new expressions. Dragon clothing, dragon pendants, dragon toys...the colorful and creative dragon elements not only bring about a consumer boom, but also lead a wave of cultural boom.
The creation of the dragon theme has made traditional culture really popular. Intangible cultural heritage and traditional folk customs have also been integrated with trendy culture, using new scenes and new gameplay to exaggerate the New Year atmosphere and lead the national trend.
In the old town of Huangyan in Taizhou, Zhejiang, a team of designers designed and transformed traditional intangible cultural lanterns. Thousands of Song-style palace lanterns turned the thousand-year-old Wudongqiao old town into a trendy place during the Spring Festival.
During the Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon, the National Center for the Performing Arts allows the audience to immerse themselves in the "beauty of the Chinese nation" through new creative cultural activities such as Peking Opera flash mobs, Peking Opera oil painting exhibitions, and the creation of digital Peking Opera. Most of the leading roles in the classic play "Dragon and Phoenix" performed here are played by people born in the 1990s in the theater. The youthful expression in the play not only attracts a large number of young audiences, but also makes China's traditional culture shine again.
During the Spring Festival holiday, the whole country is filled with a joyful and prosperous festive atmosphere. From the first to the eighth day of the first lunar month of the lunar calendar, the total box office of movies exceeded 8 billion yuan, setting a record for the Spring Festival box office in Chinese film history; 474 million domestic trips were made during the eight-day Spring Festival holiday, a year-on-year increase of 34.3%; since the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, key business districts across the country have The total passenger flow increased by more than 70% year-on-year; before and after the Spring Festival, more than 5 million pieces of traditional cultural content were posted on social platforms, setting off a craze.
Zou Yunhan, deputy director and associate researcher of the Macroeconomic Research Office of the Economic Forecast Department of the National Information Center:
This year’s Spring Festival consumption can be summed up in two words, one is hot and the other is new. The popularity is reflected in the fact that during the Spring Festival this year, the mobility of people across a wide range of regions across society has been significantly enhanced compared to the past. After the entire society has become active, it has promoted the popularity and vitality of the consumer market. Innovation in the field of consumption is a very prominent new growth point. This innovation is not only reflected in the innovation of traditional commodity consumption, but also in the innovation of business models for service consumption. It has a very good effect in stimulating consumption willingness and promoting the release of the potential of the consumer market.
During the Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon, the boom in cultural tourism consumption in various places not only witnessed the popularity of traditional Chinese culture, demonstrated cultural confidence, and boosted the consumer market, but also reflected people's strong demand for reunion, leisure and cultural experience. When traditional culture is integrated into trendy culture in new ways, new scenes, and new ways of playing, it not only makes traditional culture more modern and fashionable, but also gives Spring Festival consumption deeper cultural meaning and emotional value. As an important node for stimulating domestic demand and activating consumption potential, the consumption boom during the Spring Festival holiday is a good start for the whole year. It also shows that stimulating consumption requires not only traditional consumption hot spots, but also continuous innovation and creativity.
Editor丨Zhao Yuan
Videography丨Xi Ming
Planning丨Niu Yanmin
Editing | Zhang Wenqing and Miao Jialiang
(CCTV News Client)