"Coming to a city for a movie" is becoming a new trend in the cultural tourism industry. Recently, Shanghai Media announced the official launch of its resident brand "SEE YOU IN SHANGHAI!" After taking the lead in resident dramas such as "Journey of Time and Space", "Sleepless

"Coming to a city for a movie" is becoming a new trend in the cultural tourism industry.

A few days ago, Shanghai Media and Radio announced the official launch of the resident brand "see you in shanghai!" After taking the lead in resident dramas such as "Journey of Time and Space", "Sleepless Night" and "The Eternal Wave" and achieving both box office and word-of-mouth success, Shanghai Media and Broadcasting Performing Arts Group, a subsidiary of Shanghai Radio and Television Station, will focus on creating a new "resident drama". "Performance Brand", with the three major models of urban performing arts resident performance, cultural tourism performing arts resident performance and immersive performing arts resident performance as the core, attracting audiences from all over the country and even the world to "come to Shanghai for a drama".

All kinds of performances gather in Shanghai

"See you in shanghai!" The resident performance brand will gather the superior resources of Shanghai Media and Broadcasting Co., Ltd. and layout three types of resident performances: urban performing arts, cultural and tourism performing arts, and immersive performing arts, targeting different audiences Launch differentiated residency projects for target groups.

Urban performing arts resident performances are benchmarked against Broadway in New York and London's West End. They are represented by musicals, dance dramas, dramas and other art types. They have a relatively complete industrial system, high maturity of works, and regular and high-frequency residencies. It will help polish the theater company's brand and attract local audiences. Residency performances of dance dramas such as "The Eternal Wave" and "Crested Ibis" fall into this category. The on-site cultural and tourism performing arts performances are mainly singing and dancing shows, acrobatics shows, dining shows, etc., and the target audience is mainly tourists. "Journey Through Time" and "Happy Circus" are all examples of this genre.

It is reported that "Journey Through Time" has been performed a total of 5,354 times since its premiere in September 2005, attracting 5.25 million people around the world. The Shanghai version of "Sleepless Night" has performed more than 2,000 times in eight years, and the total project revenue has exceeded 520 million yuan; "The Eternal Wave" and "Crested Ibis" have created a new era of dance drama residencies, with a cumulative total of 2,000 performances in Shanghai. It has over 100 performances, with a total of more than 1,000 performances worldwide, achieving both box office and word-of-mouth success.

In 2025, the "see you in shanghai!" resident brand will launch the musical "Six", the immersive music show "League of Legends: Battle of Two Cities", and the 40th anniversary concert of the musical "Les Misérables" Waiting for residency projects. In the next three years, more domestic and foreign high-quality works will be created. The total number of performances is expected to reach 5,000, and the number of spectators is expected to account for more than 80% of the total number of spectators in Shanghai residency projects.

Resident performances leverage the cultural and tourism economy

Resident performances drive the integrated development of culture, business, tourism and sports in a city. The increase in high-quality resident performances will also give rise to the birth and transformation of more cultural and tourism integration landmarks, with cultural and artistic performances Promote urban consumption.

For example, the McKinnon Hotel where "Sleepless Night" was staged is located at the intersection of Beijing West Road and Jiangning Road in Shanghai. It was originally an old building that had been idle for nearly 20 years. From a local performance venue to a tourist destination in Shanghai, it brings not only ticket revenue, but also consumption in hotels, restaurants, transportation and other aspects. "Sleepless Night" has also cooperated with a number of well-known domestic and foreign brands to innovatively integrate immersive performances with multiple business formats such as retail, real estate, fashion consumption, etc., and continues to promote the creation of a city landmark with performing arts as its core. The improvement of surrounding business formats includes Consumption in the entire neighborhood has been significantly driven, truly realizing the integration of culture, business and tourism. Data shows that after 8 years of high reputation, the composition of the foreign audience of the Shanghai version of "Sleepless Night" has increased from the initial 47.2% to 60.5% today. More and more foreign and overseas audiences are attracted by the charm of the work. Shanghai.

performances also boosted the popularity of air tickets and hotels in related cities. According to statistics from travel platforms such as Ctrip and Tongcheng, tens of thousands of young tourists are now willing to travel to a city for a concert to start their own trip. Tongcheng Travel data shows that during the 2023 Dragon Boat Festival, hotel orders in business districts around domestic concerts and music festivals increased by more than 300% year-on-year. Qingdao Golden Beach Scenic Area, the venue for the Qingdao Phoenix Music Festival, is the most popular performance and accommodation business district during the holidays. In addition, popular performances such as Hua Chenyu's concert in Changsha and Mayday's concert in Wuhan have driven a significant increase in accommodation bookings in surrounding business districts, and it has been "hard to find a room" in some popular business districts.

Tongcheng Travel stated that the company's product system has gradually expanded from hotels, air tickets, and train tickets to travel and vacation, and even life and entertainment services such as concerts, movie watching, and game watching. In particular, the consumption of food, accommodation, travel, shopping and entertainment driven by the performance is very obvious. Combined with the comprehensive coverage of service scenarios such as performances and the continuous improvement of the product system, user stickiness has been significantly improved. As of the second quarter of 2024, the annual per capita consumption frequency of Tongcheng travel users has increased from 6.6 times in the same period of 2023 to 8.1 times.

"In recent years, the cultural tourism market has recovered. Overall, the number of guests staying in combination with performance activities has increased significantly. In the past, most of our hotels were mainly business or family guests, but since last year, we have noticed that Many concerts, live performances and other activities will obviously boost the local accommodation industry, and the proportion of our guests has increased significantly," the relevant person in charge of Huazhu Group told China Business News.

In addition to performances, the commercial value of game IP is also being explored. The immersive music show "League of Legends: Battle of Two Cities" will have its world premiere next year in the renovated annex building of Shanghai Hotel. It was born out of the game of the same name with 180 million monthly active users. It is supervised by Riot Games and jointly produced by Tencent Video, Tencent Interactive Entertainment, Shanghai Media Group and Wow Haw Wow. The consumption drive of

game IP cannot be underestimated. Recently, "Black Myth: Wukong" selected 36 scenic spots nationwide as the game background, and there were as many as 27 shooting spots in Shanxi Province, such as Xiaoxitian, Jade Emperor Temple, Iron Buddha Temple, etc. On the Ctrip platform, from 0:00 to 12:00 on August 20, the search popularity in Shanxi Province increased by more than 10% month-on-month, and the search popularity in cities such as Datong and Shuozhou increased by 20% month-on-month.

These data all show that a high-quality performance and game IP can drive the growth of related cultural and tourism consumption.

Since 2024, China’s tourism consumption has grown steadily. According to data released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, in the first half of 2024, there were 2.725 billion domestic trips, a year-on-year increase of 14.3%; the total travel expenditure of domestic tourists was 2.73 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.0%. Mass consumers have become the main driving force of the tourism market.

In the future, Shanghai Media and Entertainment Group will put more emphasis on telling the story of Shanghai. It is expected that the immersive resident musical "The Myth of Love" will be staged in Zhang Yuan by the end of 2026, using an immersive cultural and tourism experience to attract audiences across the country to come to Shanghai and understand Shanghai stories in the language of the musical. Focusing on urban cultural tourism space, consumption scenarios, and lifestyles, we launched short video IPs such as "Shanghaieye Loves Shanghai", launched SMG Live's international resident brand IP, promoted new ways of cultural consumption, new ideas, and new business formats, and helped Shanghai create "Performing Arts" "Big World" to promote urban cultural, business, tourism and sports exhibition linkage.