On the morning of today (September 6), the Information Office of Shanghai Municipality held a press briefing. Zhong Xiaomin, director of the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism, introduced the overall arrangements for the 35th Shanghai Tourism Festival and a series of cultural and tourism measures to promote consumption. Cheng Meihong, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism, Liu Min, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, Zhang Yi, second-level inspector of the Shanghai Administration of Sports, Xu Zhi, member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Huangpu District Committee and deputy district chief, and Miao Ting, full-time deputy director of the Lin-gang Special Area Administration, attended the press briefing and answered questions from reporters.I. About the 35th Shanghai Tourism FestivalThe 35th Shanghai Tourism Festival will take place from September 14 to October 6, 2024, spanning 23 days. This year’s festival will remain true to its purpose as “a festival for the people,” with the theme “Embrace Beauty and Joy.” The event will continue a myriad of events, featuring: hundreds of activities for all to enjoy, thousands of products promoting full integration, tens of thousands of businesses across the city celebrating together, and the activation of hundreds of millions of online traffic. The festival will focus on three key functions: expanding capacity through festivals to boost large-scale consumption in culture, commerce, tourism, sports, and exhibitions; serving the people’s livelihood by enhancing culture and tourism; and strengthening the city’s image. All districts, key enterprises, and platforms will be mobilized to organize four series of “Meet in Shanghai” activities, six high-quality development plans, and 200 themed tours and products in eight categories. The aim is to transform urban resources into cultural and tourism assets, continuously increase traffic, popularity, and consumer spending. The festival also seeks to achieve three new objectives: promoting the city as a new engine for inbound tourism, fostering innovative practices for new quality productive forces in culture and tourism, and building a new platform for international and domestic circulations.1. Focus on enhancing the festival’s image, drawing crowds, and creating a symbolic celebration through the opening and closing ceremonies. The festival will link world-renowned cultural and tourism resources such as Yellow Mountain and Dunhuang, while bringing together international top-tier cultural and tourism brands like Disney and Lego. Art performance groups from 16 countries and regions, including the United States, France, and Italy, will converge in Shanghai, and the iconic opening parade will make a grand return. On the evening of September 14, 25 performance teams and 25 dazzling floats will parade down Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street, bringing the festivities to life. During the event, businesses and merchants along Nanjing Road will join in with Shanghai Tourism Festival-themed marketing, special promotions, and art performances. From the opening day until September 27, the 25 floats will travel to major business districts and areas across 11 districts, including Jing’an Daning and Putuo Global Harbor, to display the parade. The closing event on the evening of October 6 will take place at Shanghai Haichang Ocean Park in Lin-gang. The event will feature a spectacular closing show with fireworks, drone displays, and water curtain light and shadow performances. All participating floats will gather at Dishui Lake in Lin-gang for a grand light-up display, creating a stunning and joyful finale to the Shanghai Tourism Festival.2. Focus on elevating capacities and driving traffic by creating four major “traffic access” activities. This year’s festival will feature key activities across different times of day, seasons, weeks, and festivals, including: 1) Meet in Shanghai Sleepless Night: Opening a new night-time culture and tourism access with events such as the first Shanghai International Light Festival, and themed activities like Museum Night, Arts Night, and Reading Night; 2) Meet in Shanghai Consumption Season: Boosting the economic traffic access for culture and tourism with events like the “Shanghai Gift” Boutique Shopping Week and a cloud shopping season combining offline markets with online livestreaming-driven sales. The series will also include activities like the Golden Autumn Shopping and Tourism Season; 3) Meet in Shanghai ‘Benefit the People’ Week: Enhancing culture and tourism and benefiting the public with a week of half-price admissions at major tourist attractions across the city, and promoting the week at main and branch venues of the festival. Innovative events such as street art exhibitions will also be introduced; 4) Meet in Shanghai Happy Tour Festival: Creating a new access for cultural and tourism experiences with an upgraded Hongkou Happy Festival, the pioneering “Happy Tour Waterfront Festival of 12 National Beauties on Suzhou Creek” and boutique urban tourism festivals. This series will also connect with Yangtze River Delta resources for the Jiangnan Food Festival. By combining these boutique cultural and tourism activities, the festival aims to convert “traffic” into “retention,” enhancing the engine of cultural and tourism engagement.3. Focus on strong connections and robust consumption by launching 100 themed tour products across eight major categories. This year’s tourism festival emphasizes eight key categories: “Love Shopping Season, City Memories, Waterfront Tour, Urban Style, Sea of Flowers, Cloud Tour, Garden Festival, and City Concerto.” A total of 200 themed tour products and activities will be introduced. The festival will highlight the diverse consumption offerings in culture, commerce, tourism, sports, and exhibitions, leveraging urban business districts to create new cultural and commercial experiences. Notable events include the Typical Hongqiao Carnival, Xujiahui Trendy Art Festival, and Typical Jiangnan Qingpu Culture and Tourism Festival. The festival will also feature the Great Art of Dunhuang and enhance the impact of popular cultural exhibitions like the On Top of the Pyramid: The Civilization of Ancient Egypt, launching a series of exhibition-tourism products. Focusing on new experiences in intangible cultural heritage, the festival will debut the first Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritance Season, and create new cultural IPs such as Tang Elegance Mid-Autumn Festival, Yuyuan Garden Mid-Autumn Moon Tour, Fengjing Water Town Wedding, Qibao Ancient Town Cultural Festival, Confucius Cultural Festival, and Nanxiang China Chic Conference. For the integrated tour of the waterfront along the river and creek, activities such as the Suzhou Creek Culture and Tourism Festival, Suzhou Creek Flower Boat Parade, North Bund Landscape and Life Festival, Cruise Culture and Tourism Festival, and Port Concert will be featured. Additionally, a special River and Creek route will be launched, incorporating elements like music, performing arts, intangible cultural heritage, and architecture.As the Lin-gang Special Area of the China (Shanghai) Free Trade Zone marks its fifth anniversary, a milestone in its role as a leader in reform and opening up, efforts are being accelerated to establish the core culture and tourism brand of “World Coast, Future City.” This initiative aims to emphasize the area’s youthful, vibrant, and dynamic spirit. Three carefully designed City Walk routes, themed around ocean, ice and snow, art, and competition, have been introduced to better cater to tourism consumption needs and showcase the new charm of the area.Additionally, special pages for the tourism festival will be launched on five major high-traffic online platforms — Alipay, Meituan, Ctrip, Douyin, and Damai. These pages will provide a one-stop release of event information and culture and tourism discount lists, along with early bird ticket pre-sales, creating a unified access and bridging the “last mile” of information services.4. Focus on unlocking potential and driving development through the launch of six High-Quality Development Action Plans. In response to new trends in the cultural and tourism sectors, evolving demands of citizens and tourists, and innovative models for publicity and promotion, we will implement initiatives aimed at enhancing productivity and quality. These include plans to support the digital representation of tourism festivals and the creative application of artificial intelligence, as well as initiatives to cultivate the emerging nighttime economy, enriching and expanding nighttime services at cultural and tourism venues while continually enhancing the cultural and tourism value chain. Additionally, we will introduce plans to develop new cultural and tourism projects, creating and promoting new urban landmarks that further strengthen Shanghai’s cultural and tourism IP. A new brand image cooperation plan will be launched to deepen and expand the application of the tourism festival IP, fostering joint displays and authorized distribution of cross-sector products. Furthermore, we will enhance regional collaboration, empowering the cultural and tourism hubs in sub-venue cities to stand out, gain recognition, and reach global audiences.II. About policies for promoting culture and tourism consumption To further encourage and support the city’s tourism enterprises in innovating their offerings, expanding the tourism market, attracting visitors, and boosting tourism consumption, the Support Measures for Encouraging Tourism Enterprises to Attract Tourists to Shanghai has been formulated and launched. These measures are market-oriented, problem-focused, and results-driven, emphasizing support for tourism projects across seven key areas. The measures exhibit four main characteristics in terms of scope and policy orientation.1. Balancing Domestic and International Tourism: The measures increase support for inbound tourism by offering incentives to tourism enterprises that attract inbound tourists staying in Shanghai for more than two nights, welcome transit visa-free tourists who stay for over two days, or host large international conferences and overseas incentive-based tour groups. Additionally, domestic tourism is bolstered by providing support to enterprises that attract both domestic and international tourists who stay in Shanghai for more than three nights via charter flights, ships, or tourist trains.2. Encouraging Iterative Tourism Products: Tourism enterprises that innovate and update inbound or domestic theme tour routes are eligible for support if their new products reach a certain scale in terms of the number of tourists.3. Emphasizing Online and Offline Integration: By fostering strong online traffic and offline consumption, the measures provide support to online tourism platforms that collaborate with airlines, hotels, scenic spots, sports events, and commercial outlets to carry out promotional activities, attract a significant number of tourists to Shanghai, and achieve a substantial proportion of foreign visitors.4. Guiding the Expansion of International Influence: Support is extended to tourism enterprises that participate in major international tourism exhibitions and promotional activities, helping to showcase the city’s high-quality cultural and tourism resources and inbound tourism products on the global stage.For detailed support standards, conditions, and amounts, please refer to the officially released policy documents.III. About market supply of inbound tourism Culture and tourism are a major industry, a significant aspect of people’s livelihoods, and a key platform for showcasing a city’s identity. Inbound tourism not only plays a vital role in telling China’s stories, promoting exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations, and enhancing the city’s image, but it also contributes to attracting foreign spending, improving modern governance, and elevating urban services. Inbound tourism has consistently been a pillar of Shanghai’s tourism industry, maintaining a leading position nationwide.With the strong leadership by the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee and the Shanghai Municipal Government, along with the concerted efforts of relevant departments, Shanghai’s inbound tourism has been on a strong recovery trajectory since last year. In the first half of this year, the city received over 3 million inbound tourists, marking a year-on-year increase of more than 140%. To further enrich tourism offerings, optimize services, solidify Shanghai’s status as the premier gateway for inbound tourism in China, and attract more international visitors to “Meet in Shanghai,” we are launching over 120 curated inbound tourism routes. These routes span multiple dimensions, offer varying depths of experience, and cover a wide array of interests. At the same time, we are continuously refining our inbound tourism services to enhance convenience and accessibility. These thoughtfully designed tourism products and services allow inbound tourists to fully immerse themselves in Shanghai’s history, culture, developmental achievements, and local customs. They not only highlight Shanghai’s prosperity and vibrancy as a global metropolis but also vividly reflect its unique lifestyle and rich cultural heritage. These efforts will undoubtedly support the steady and sustainable growth of high-quality inbound tourism in Shanghai.