China News Service, Qingdao, September 7 (Wang Yu) As the summer tourism season comes to an end, the cultural tourism market in Qingdao, Shandong Province has entered a peak-staggering cycle. A number of high-density large-scale concerts have been held one after another, continuing to attract cross-city passenger flow, filling the gap in passenger flow for the local golden autumn tourism market, and continuing to boost "performance + cultural tourism" consumption.
Xu Song's "Anbo Conjecture" concert tour recently held two consecutive concerts at the Qingdao Citizen Fitness Center Stadium. According to statistics from the Qingdao Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau, the two performances attracted a total of nearly 80,000 live performances, of which nearly 70% of the audience came from outside Qingdao, becoming an important fulcrum in leveraging the local golden autumn peak tourism market.
Different from the peak flow of people during the summer when parent-child travel is concentrated, the weather in Qingdao is pleasant in September, and travel and accommodation costs have dropped. “I’ll go to Qingdao after get off work on Friday and watch a show on the weekend while visiting the old city. Traveling during off-peak hours is very cost-effective,” said Ms. Zhou, a fan who came all the way from Jinan.
On September 6, Xu Song's "Anbo Conjecture" tour concert was held in Qingdao, Shandong. Photo courtesy of Qingdao Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau
The diversion effect of the performance is being transmitted to the entire cultural and tourism chain. Industry data shows that foreign audiences at large-scale concerts will stay at their destination for an average of 2 to 3 days, directly driving consumption growth in accommodation, catering, transportation, scenic spot tours and other fields. Fans, who are mainly young people, are more inclined to experience the city's fireworks in depth, extending a single performance trip into a city micro-vacation.
In order to handle the instantaneous passenger flow brought by the performance, multiple departments in Qingdao worked together to provide a combination of service guarantees. Qingdao Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau, Qingdao Municipal Transportation Bureau and others have made coordinated efforts. In terms of transportation, they have delayed the operation of subways and added customized buses after the show to ensure the rapid evacuation of audiences. The cultural and tourism end has linked up with scenic spots, hotels, and business districts to launch the "Enjoy Benefits with Ticket Stubs" activity, which naturally guides the audience to various consumption scenes in the city, so that foreign audiences can "come in and leave quickly" and "retain and have a good time".
A recent report released by Tuniu, a Chinese online travel platform, shows that Qingdao has successfully ranked among the top 10 popular domestic destinations for off-peak travel due to its coastal scenery and diverse cultural and tourism experiences, ranking at the top of the list together with cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu.
Focusing on the autumn colors of the coast and the characteristics of the harvest season, Qingdao Cultural Tourism focuses on the two core areas of pastoral harvest and old town drama. In September, it coordinated the launch of 176 high-quality cultural tourism activities such as the Qingdao Grand Theater Art Season and the Liyuan Comedy Festival, building a new golden autumn cultural tourism development pattern of "drawing traffic from the countryside, retaining tourists in the old city, and linking the whole region".
In recent years, Qingdao has continued to strive for the integrated development of "performing arts + cultural tourism", from building a "concert city" to deploying all-season cultural tourism products, constantly jumping out of the seasonal limitations of traditional coastal tourism, continuing to empower Qingdao's cultural tourism industry, and promoting the transformation of coastal tourism from "hot in summer" to "evergreen all year round". (over)
