The night economy remains a key focus for boosting consumption this summer, with various places in China rolling out diverse nighttime consumption activities tailored to local conditions, in a bid to boost the vitality of the country's economy in the third quarter amid dazzling lights.
In Shanghai, Yuyuan Garden, which has a history of 466 years, launched its inaugural public night tours, according to the Xinhua News Agency on Saturday. This night tour combines modern lighting, dynamic projections and mapping shows with classical garden art.
The tour features a special exhibition of rarely displayed Shanghai-style calligraphy and painting, enhanced by digital technology bringing scenes to life. Yuyuan Garden's cultural creative brand made its debut alongside a night tour, featuring products like blind box figures and ceramic tea ware popular with international tourists. Notably, the garden now offers English-language guided services, according to Xinhua.
In East China's Jiangsu Province, new nighttime cultural and tourism scenes and formats have been emerging this month. For instance, at the Huai'an Fantawild Glorious Orient, a large high-tech park themed on red culture, visitors stroll through retro settings, as if traveling through time. With a newly upgraded summer fireworks festival, the scenic area has seen a peak daily visitor count exceeding 20,000, with more than half being nighttime visitors, CCTV reported on Sunday.
The Doupotang Waterfall within the Huangguoshu Scenic Area of Southwest China's Guizhou Province, a classic filming location for the 1986 TV series Journey to the West, transforms at nightfall into the stage for a large-scale live fantasy drama related to the TV series. The production integrates the natural landscape with cutting-edge technologies like naked-eye holographic projections and artificial intelligence interactive systems, according to chinanews.com on Sunday.
Multiple museums have scheduled extended opening hours this summer.
According to CCTV, the Natural History Museum of China not only extended its opening hours but also added nighttime visiting sessions, offering a variety of educational and entertaining activities. As night falls, the exterior walls of the museum's main building transform into a dynamic canvas, showcasing a 3D light and shadow show that vividly illustrates the 4.6-billion-year history of evolution on the Earth. Inside the museum, virtual reality immersive exhibitions, themed talks on animals and plants, and a rich array of activities keep visitors captivated.
A survey on the night economy by the China Tourism Academy shows that more than one-third of national first-class museums have launched night tour activities during the summer. In addition, the nighttime opening rate of national 5A-level tourist attractions has increased from 23 percent in 2020 to 63 percent now, with the addition of core nighttime attractions such as light installations, performing arts cruise boats and homestay markets.
Moreover, figures from Meituan Travel showed that the "golden four hours" from 6 pm to 10 pm are rapidly becoming a new growth engine for cultural and tourism consumption.
Since July, searches and comments related to "night tours" have increased by approximately 100 percent compared with the previous month, with search peaks occurring every weekend. The top 10 cities for search popularity include Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Wuhan and Shanghai, with activities such as "Pearl River night tour" and "Yangtze River night tour" among the top trending search terms, according to Meituan Travel.
Since July, searches for "museum night tour" have increased by nearly 200 percent, and searches for "scenic area night tour" have risen by nearly 230 percent compared with the previous month.
Lin Xianping, secretary-general of the Institute of Cultural and Creative Studies at Hangzhou City University, said that the development of China's night economy has progressed from dining and entertainment to shopping, culture and tourism.
In addition to the diversification of business formats, many cities have introduced policies and measures to support the development of the night economy, creating a more favorable environment for its growth, Lin noted.
During the peak summer consumption season, the increasingly refined night economy model is expected to significantly boost the vitality of the tourism market, creating new growth opportunities for the country's economic development, the expert said.
