China News Service, Shanghai, September 29 (Reporter Xu Jing) The Institute of Economics of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences released the "Shanghai Economic Development Report (2026): Construction of an International Consumption Center City" (hereinafter referred to as the report) on the 28th. The report points out that the integrated development of culture, business, tourism and sports exhibitions has become an important way for Shanghai to promote consumption upgrades and cultivate new growth. It is also a key starting point for Shanghai to continue to consolidate the city's level as an international consumption center and enhance the city's core competitiveness.
Shen Kaiyan, editor-in-chief of the report and director of the Institute of Economics of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said that in recent years, Shanghai has continued to anchor the goal of building an international consumption center city, keeping up with the national consumption upgrade trend, launching a series of special actions to boost consumption, continuing to polish the "Shanghai Consumption" city brand, and further strengthening the basic supporting role of consumption in economic growth.
The report focuses on the theme of urban construction as an international consumption center, and systematically studies and judges the quality and expansion of Shanghai's consumer market. Among them, the general report sorts out the new changes and new growth points in Shanghai's consumer demand, and the sub-reports carry out multi-dimensional in-depth analysis around key areas such as the integration of cultural, business, tourism and sports exhibitions, cultivation of inbound consumption, growth of new business formats, quality improvement in key areas, and cross-regional consumption linkage.
According to the report, the current Shanghai consumer market shows the distinctive characteristics of "scale expansion, energy level improvement, circle diffusion, and significant stratification", but at the same time it faces practical shortcomings such as insufficient supply-side adaptability. Facing the future trend of generational change in consumption and deepening linkage between domestic and foreign markets, Shanghai's consumption boosting ideas need to shift from short-term stimulation to long-term institutional supply. The report recommends that Shanghai should upgrade consumption infrastructure, enrich scenario supply, and optimize policy tools; promote cultural, business, tourism, and sports exhibitions from simple event linkage to institutionalized, regular and deep integration; strengthen original IP, strengthen technological empowerment, and improve industrial ecology and international layout; rely on departure tax refund policies to optimize and activate inbound consumption potential; accurately connect the consumer needs of key groups such as the elderly and teenagers, and activate the vitality of market segments; promote the coordinated development of the consumer market in the Yangtze River Delta and the wider region through the exchange of rules, platform co-construction, and scenario sharing.
2026 Shanghai Global Food Fair·The 7th Shanghai Snack Carnival was held at the Global Harbor, a cultural, commercial and tourism landmark in the central area of Shanghai, attracting many citizens and tourists to experience the carnival of local tastes, Chinese flavors and global cuisines. Photo by Shen Hai
The eye-catching data confirms the strong momentum of Shanghai’s new cultural consumption. In 2025, Shanghai will have 9.3602 million inbound tourists, a year-on-year increase of 39.6%, and total tourism revenue will exceed 560 billion yuan; the city will hold 61,400 commercial performances, with a box office of 5.852 billion yuan. The scale of the hotel ranks first in the country; the scale of the online audio-visual industry is 253 billion yuan, and the sales revenue of the online game industry is 170.7 billion yuan; the 182 sports events throughout the year achieved a direct economic impact of 13.5 billion yuan, and a comprehensive pulling effect of 35.8 billion yuan.
Under the vigorous growth trend, Shanghai's new cultural consumption is showing four major trends: normalization of cross-city consumption, in-depth immersive experience, large-scale digital content, and dominance of youth groups. At the same time, there are still problems such as insufficient supply of original IP, homogeneous competition in the industry, low consumption conversion efficiency, and insufficient integration of technology and humanities.
The report analyzes that Shanghai has a profound cultural heritage, complete business supporting facilities, high-quality cultural and sports resources and high-end exhibition platforms. The integrated development of culture, business, tourism and sports exhibitions has a solid foundation and outstanding results. However, there are still shortcomings such as insufficient business integration, poor coordination mechanisms, product supply quality that needs to be improved, and weak international adaptability. In the future, it is necessary to continue to deepen the linkage and integration of multiple business formats, strengthen IP cultivation and technological empowerment, optimize the international layout of industries, improve data monitoring and institutional guarantees, continue to release the economic driving effect of new cultural consumption, and assist in the high-quality construction of international consumption center cities. (over)
