How much consumption can one event or one performance drive? If you only count ticket revenue, the answer may be limited. But when events and performances connect business districts, scenic spots, hotels, and markets, a small ticket stub becomes a passport to unlock global consumption. Data show that in the first three quarters of this year, the growth rate of retail sales of travel consulting and leasing services and cultural, sports and leisure services was significantly faster than the overall service retail growth rate. The booming cultural, tourism and sports businesses are integrating new business formats and continuing to inject new momentum into the consumer market.
Event empowerment leverages consumer traffic
Not long ago, the 2026 China Tennis Open was successfully held in Beijing. The event launched a ticket stub city gift package, linking with surrounding business districts, hotels, and scenic spots to create a consumption package for watching the game. Inside the stadium, exciting competitions take turns; outside the stadium, theme markets, tennis cultural exhibitions, and star salons are carried out simultaneously, upgrading a single game viewing into a diversified consumption complex. Statistics show that 60% of China Open’s visitors are from outside Beijing, with nearly 10,000 overseas visitors. The event has become a hub that connects domestic cities and connects passenger flow at home and abroad. Its value extends beyond ticket revenue and extends to accommodation, catering, shopping, cultural tourism and other fields.
The China Rock Climbing League has been renovated along the lines of "sports events entering scenic spots, neighborhoods and business districts" and "traveling with events". In early August, Guiyang Station created an exclusive "Cultural and Tourism Week for Rock Climbing Events", driving up the surrounding catering, accommodation, and cultural tourism consumption. In early September, Shanghai Station landed in Xujiahui Sports Park, and simultaneously opened the "Gravity" sports theme market. Special dining areas, outdoor camping viewing areas, and sports brand pop-up experience areas are scattered at random, creating a leisure scene for the audience to travel, play, and interact with in addition to watching the competition.
More and more event organizers are breaking away from the short-term thinking of "holding an event and earning a wave of traffic" and are basing themselves on long-term operations of urban resources, gradually converting fleeting traffic dividends into sustainable industrial value.
Content breaks the circle and recreates consumption scenarios
If events are an important engine for attracting traffic, then the cultural and sports content embedded in street business districts injects attraction into the consumption scene.
Kuanzhai Alley has always been the eye-catching business card of Chengdu cultural tourism. In the past, tourists mostly came to experience the historical context and check out the streets and lanes. Nowadays, the "Wide and Narrow·Unbounded" immersive performance has become a new attraction: ancient Shu theme performances, classic dance dramas, folk music and operas, magic interactions, and intangible cultural heritage performances are distributed in every corner of the streets. As tourists walk slowly, they can encounter a performance by chance at any time. The old street has transformed from a static check-in place into a mobile cultural experience venue.
For a long time in the past, consumption in scenic spots and neighborhoods was mainly based on shopping and dining. The space was complete but lacked content to retain people. Now, more and more business entities are moving events, performances, and exhibitions into shopping malls, neighborhoods, and scenic spots, using cultural and sports content to transform traditional consumption scenes. Consumers do not have to go to a destination specifically to watch performances or games. They can encounter a wonderful cultural and sports event while shopping and relaxing.
"Tourists' travel needs have changed, and they are more willing to combine multiple leisure activities in one trip. Many people watch games and performances, and take advantage of the opportunity to taste food, go shopping, and visit attractions. This transformation from single-point consumption to chain experience promotes the flow of passengers between culture, sports, commerce, and tourism, laying a solid demand foundation for the integration of culture, tourism, sports, and business." said Wang Yi, deputy general manager of Chengdu Culture and Tourism Development Group Co., Ltd.
According to Sun Jiashan, a researcher at the Chinese Culture Teaching and Research Department of the Central University of Socialism, many cultural and sports projects and supporting commercial layouts in the early days were relatively independent, with high business barriers and weak linkages, which easily formed "consumption islands." The deep integration of culture, tourism, and sports businesses can break the boundaries of business formats, achieve the "1+1>2" consumption synergy, and further amplify the effectiveness of comprehensive consumption.
Integration is not a simple splicing of business formats, but a systematic collaboration of supply, scenarios, services, and policies. Sun Jiashan believes that as new cultural business formats continue to emerge, original industry standards and operating specifications also need to be dynamically adjusted. This requires all parties to follow up in a timely manner and steadily transform the traffic advantage into sustained momentum to boost domestic demand growth.
Collaborative efforts to optimize the development ecology
The General Office of the State Council's "Opinions on Releasing the Potential of Sports Consumption and Further Promoting the High-Quality Development of the Sports Industry" proposes to "carry out linkages between business, tourism, culture, sports and health, promote integrated planning and development of competitions, exhibitions, festivals and tourism, and enrich industrial formats", setting a clear path for industrial integration.
Following this direction, the Ministry of Commerce has launched a series of special consumption-promoting activities this year focusing on the four major sectors of "fine shopping, exquisite food, exciting tourism, and exquisite performances". It has also taken the lead in organizing the "Service Consumption Season", covering catering and accommodation, cultural entertainment, tourism, sports and health and other fields, connecting a wide range of service consumption scenarios in various forms. "In the next step, the Ministry of Commerce will guide local governments to continue to organize various characteristic cross-border activities and cultivate new hot spots for service consumption." said Kong Dejun, director of the Department of Service Trade and Commercial Service Industry of the Ministry of Commerce.
In addition to special activities, a systematic policy system to promote consumption is being continuously improved. The Ministry of Commerce has steadily promoted the construction of an international consumption center city, implemented special actions to improve the quality of service consumption to benefit the people, and improve healthy consumption; it has simultaneously promoted the improvement of urban business quality, promoted the expansion and upgrading of convenient living circles, and the renovation and upgrading of pedestrian streets and business districts. It has connected cultural tourism, sports, and commercial resources scattered everywhere into a line, and cultivated new growth points of integrated consumption such as "tourism +", "sports +", "performing +", "exhibition +" and "movie +" to bring more high-quality consumption choices to consumers.
Cross-business integration puts forward higher requirements for overall planning and support capabilities. At present, many places have established cross-departmental coordination mechanisms to coordinate traffic diversion, supporting supplies, and safety guarantees; some cities have established unified platforms for mutual recognition of ticket stubs and consumption benefits to reduce the docking costs of cross-border linkage for merchants. In the long run, it is necessary to continue to cultivate localized professional operation service providers, open up the linkage points between events, performances, scenic spots, and business districts, build a public service system that integrates information docking, brand incubation, and rights exchanges, lower the participation threshold for small and medium-sized business entities, and fully unleash the innovation vitality of the market.
