Sichuan Nanchong: A Booming Snake Year Spring Festival Tourism Market Achieves a "Good Start"

During the 2025 Spring Festival, Nanchong City in Sichuan Province witnessed a "good start" in its cultural and tourism market. Leveraging the successful application of the Spring Festival as an Intangible Cultural Heritage and the advantage of being the "Hometown of Spring Festival Culture," the city highlighted Langzhong Ancient City and coordinated activities across the region, launching a series of cultural and tourism events that attracted a large number of visitors and successfully ignited the "Spring Festival economy."

From January 28th to February 4th (New Year's Eve to the seventh day of the first lunar month), the city's A - grade scenic spots received a total of 4.0266 million visitors, ranking second in the province in terms of visitor numbers, with a year - on - year increase of 5.27%. The ticket revenue of A - grade scenic spots reached 17.5237 million yuan. Among them, the Langzhong Ancient City scenic spot ranked in the top three of the province's 5A - grade scenic spots in terms of daily visitor numbers for five consecutive days.

Polishing the Brand and Enriching Characteristic Activities

Nanchong polished the "Hometown of Chinese Spring Festival Culture" brand of Langzhong City, with Spring Festival culture as the main thread, and launched three major series of 13 sub - activities under the theme of "Welcoming Spring, Embracing Spring, and Returning with Spring." This ensured that there were always folk custom displays and new characteristic activities every day. The city innovatively held the Langyuan Xianpa Spring Festival Lantern Fair and the Spring Festival Temple Fair, with time - specific performances of Spring Festival - themed cultural activities such as Zhang Fei's city patrol and the Peach Garden Oath. These activities blended the "ancient" with the "modern" and the "old" with the "new," allowing citizens and tourists to experience the charm of traditional customs. During the Spring Festival, all the guesthouses and inns in Langzhong Ancient City were fully booked, with an occupancy rate that remained steadily above 95%.

To promote high - quality cultural and tourism supply in premium scenic spots, the city innovatively created the "Lanterns Reflecting on the Jialing River・Blessed Tour of Nanchong City" lantern garden party and the 5D light show in Xiangru Ancient City. It carefully operated characteristic projects such as Jialing River sailing boats and colorful water - side hot - air balloons. The city also improved and enhanced characteristic routes such as "Spring Comes to Nanchong, A Journey to Admire the Scenery" and "Touring Langzhong Ancient City, Visiting Zhu De's Hometown," attracting a significant increase in visitors from surrounding provinces and cities such as Chengdu and Chongqing. The red tourism at Zhu De's Hometown scenic spot in Yilong County became a craze, with many visitors choosing to pay their respects to revolutionary martyrs and receive a spiritual baptism during the Spring Festival.

City - County Coordination to Meet Diverse Needs

Nanchong coordinated activities between the city and counties, launching more than 80 characteristic activities in seven major sections to meet the needs of citizens and tourists for high - quality Spring Festival cultural and tourism life. The city innovatively held the "Cultural New Year・Folk Custom New Year's Greetings" parade, with nine counties (cities, districts) as the main body, adopting the form of characteristic flower - decorated floats and marching performance teams. On the first day of the lunar New Year, dragon and lion dances and yangko performances were held simultaneously, igniting the festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival.

The city also innovatively held a series of cultural Benefit to the People Activities activities such as "Village Evening Parties," "Common People's Grand Stage・New Spring Daily Fun," "Nanchong Mass Culture Lecture Hall - Bashu Characteristic Culture" lectures, and the 2025 Nanchong City New Year Fine Arts, Calligraphy, and Photography Exhibition, bringing high - quality cultural resources directly to the grassroots level. All nine cultural centers and ten public libraries in the city were free to the public during the Spring Festival, with a total of 192 offline activities and 304 online activities held, serving a total of 471,100 people.

The city meticulously organized the "Ancient Charm of Spring Festival, Celebrating the New Year in the Museum" Nanchong Museum 2025 Spring Festival series of activities, launching a series of Spring Festival activities such as Nanchong Museum New Year Treasure Hunt and bamboo weaving and New Year paintings. This allowed citizens and tourists to experience the unique charm of Spring Festival culture in the museum. The city also innovatively held the "Intangible Cultural Heritage New Year's Goods Shopping Week," carefully selecting more than 50 characteristic intangible cultural heritage projects from the city. In the Xiangxiang area of Shunqing District, activities such as intangible cultural heritage display and sales, intangible cultural heritage food tasting, and intangible cultural heritage artistic performances were held. The city distributed 350,000 yuan of consumption coupons through online live broadcasts, WeChat public accounts, and offline physical drawings. The activities attracted more than 56 million online viewers, with 1.8 million yuan in online sales and 7.21 million yuan in offline sales. The sales of various intangible cultural heritage products in the city during the Spring Festival exceeded 130 million yuan, with a year - on - year increase of 15%.

Innovative Performances to Enhance Cultural Experience

Focusing on Langzhong Ancient City, the city premiered the immersive performance "The Legend of Langyuan," and upgraded the live - action performances "The Prosperity of Shu Road" and "Guests Coming to Langzhong." The tickets for these performances were in hot demand, and the venues were packed with audiences. The city innovatively held the "Dragon Soaring and Tiger Leaping - The First Acrobatics Carnival," with high - difficulty acrobatic performances such as silk suspension and Taiji Tán Rhyme, which left tourists and citizens in awe.

In coordination with various places in the city, the city held the Qinghui Pavilion Opera Garden New Spring Festival Garden Party, with a wonderful performance of the traditional opera "Lei Da Zhang Jibao." The city also innovatively opened an opera experience area, where citizens and tourists could put on opera costumes, paint their faces, and personally experience the fun of opera performances. The Sichuan Big Puppet Theatre launched the "New Spring with Puppets" series of performances, with wonderful shows such as "The Legend of Longmen" and "The World of Puppets," which were warmly welcomed by citizens and tourists.

Consumption Promotion to Stimulate Market Vitality

The city launched the "Cultural and Tourism Consumption・Enjoying Nanchong" Spring Festival promotion activities, introducing a series of new scenes, products, and discounts for cultural and tourism consumption. The city accelerated the integrated development of sports, culture, commerce, and tourism, with continuous vitality in cultural and tourism consumption. The city promoted the deep integration of commerce, culture, and tourism, organizing a series of characteristic activities such as the Shunqing District Circular Center New Spring Festival Activity, the Impression Xih River New Spring Festival Activity, and the Nanbu County Quzhi Venice 2025 Spring Festival Activity, creating new models for the integrated development of commercial, cultural, and tourism streets.

The city piloted the exemption of admission fees for 32 state - owned A - grade scenic spots such as Langzhong Ancient City, Tiantong Temple, and Bahu Lake for students. The city allocated 3 million yuan to issue Nanchong cultural and tourism consumption coupons through platforms such as Yunshangfu and Douyin, covering fields such as A - grade scenic spots, cultural performances, intangible cultural heritage products, and star - rated hotels. The city issued 5,000 free tickets on mainstream OTA platforms to effectively promote cultural and tourism market consumption. The city encouraged enterprises and institutions to open their parking lots to the public for free, and fully implemented flexible law enforcement measures in the field of transportation such as no penalty for the first violation and exemption from punishment for minor violations, which received unanimous praise from citizens and tourists.

Publicity and Promotion to Enhance Influence

From January 27th to February 4th, a total of 17 news items were broadcast on China Media Group and 42 on Sichuan Satellite TV. CCTV13's "News 1+1," the New Year's Eve special program, and the special live broadcast of the Spring Festival by CCTV News were connected three times to Langzhong. Before and after the Spring Festival, the city actively coordinated with major central and provincial media such as People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency, China Central Television, and Sichuan Daily. A total of 700 important news items were launched by 35 central - level media, 22 provincial - level media, and 8 international communication agencies, with a total online dissemination volume of more than 550 million.

The city held more than ten live broadcasts of intangible cultural heritage shopping and other activities, inviting ten popular hosts in the fields of travel and food to promote the Spring Festival atmosphere in Nanchong before the Spring Festival. The city used popular platforms such as Weibo, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu to launch topic challenges such as #My Intangible Cultural Heritage, My Year # and #Spending the Spring Festival in Langzhong. The city encouraged tourists to share their wonderful moments of celebrating the Spring Festival in Nanchong, with the heat of Nanchong cultural and tourism Weibo exceeding 1.1 million.

The city produced 3D virtual tour videos of popular scenic spots in Nanchong, embedded with dynamic displays of folk performances, and pushed them through Nanchong cultural and tourism Douyin and video accounts to attract tourists to experience the Spring Festival atmosphere in Nanchong in advance. The city created "Nanchong New Year Flavor" flash - mob spaces in crowded places such as Nanchong Museum and Xiangxiang, with interactive areas such as tourists learning to write Spring Festival couplets on - site and participating in Nanchong New Year custom knowledge quizzes to win small gifts.

In cooperation with Nanchong Bus, the city displayed slogans such as "Spending the Spring Festival in Langzhong Ancient City, Welcoming the Spring in Nanchong" on the electronic screens of buses. The city continuously broadcast Nanchong cultural and tourism publicity videos before the Sichuan News Broadcast on Sichuan Satellite TV. The city also cooperated with telecommunications to launch Nanchong cultural and tourism publicity short videos. The city worked with Hongyadong scenic spot to continuously broadcast Nanchong cultural and tourism videos on the scenic spot's large screen to expand the coverage of publicity.

During the 2025 Spring Festival, Nanchong's cultural and tourism market was booming, with encouraging data and a variety of activities. The city not only allowed tourists to experience the charm of traditional Spring Festival culture but also effectively promoted local economic development. Through a combination of innovative activity formats, enriched product supply, and preferential policies, Nanchong successfully created a joyful, harmonious, and festive Spring Festival atmosphere. This laid a good foundation for the development of cultural and tourism throughout the year and provided valuable experience for other regions. In the future, Nanchong will continue to leverage its strengths to promote high - quality development of the cultural and tourism industry and bring more high - quality experiences to tourists.

Authors: Yang Yanjun, Yuan Lu