Consumption market goes on a drive on back of travel demand

China will continue to increase policy support to accelerate service consumption demand, the Economic Daily reported on Friday.

The consumer market is driving the country's economic growth, with the service consumption sectors such as culture and tourism industries recording outstanding performance.

According to official data, the revenue generated from domestic tourism reached 2.3 trillion yuan ($321 billion) in the first half of this year, surging 95.9 percent year-on-year.

The tourist economy has entered full recovery in the first six months, with the residents' travel willingness, entrepreneurs' confidence and prosperity index of tourist economy reaching the best level in the past three years, said Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Academy.

The tourism demand also drove the consumption in transportation, hotels, commerce, and catering.

The expectation is that the travel economy will perform better in the second half of the year, Dai said. A comprehensive index to measure tourists' satisfaction reached 80.08 during Jan to June, which was basically the same as the level in the first half of 2019. When the satisfaction of tourists is stable in the current period, the willingness of residents to travel and consumption expectations will be stable in the next period.

The cultural market also showed positive growth in the first half of the year.

According to the China Association of Performing Arts, 193,300 commercial performances (excluding performances at entertainment venues) nationwide were staged in the first six months, surging 400.86 percent year-on-year; the box office of performance reached 16.79 billion yuan, jumping 673.49 percent year-on-year.

The performances not only brought revenue from tickets, but also drove a series of consumption in tourism, transportation, accommodation, and catering, as well as promoted job creation in related industries; moreover, the large-scale performance projects have become an important channel for locals to develop cultural and tourist economy, said Liu Kezhi, chairman of the China Association of Performing Arts.

As the summer holiday began, the cultural and tourism market entered peak season. During July to August, more than 300 middle- and large- performance projects will welcome over 15 million visitors, said the China Association of Performing Arts.

The country will set out measures to further stimulate the potential of tourism consumption to promote the high-quality development of the sector, and start construction of a new batch of national cultural and tourism consumption demonstration cities, national tourism resorts, 5A scenic spots, cultural and tourism clusters for night consumption, and tourism and leisure blocks, to build important platforms and carriers for promoting consumption and industrial development, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Promoting tourism consumption should pay more attention to the travel market of young people's study travel, middle-aged and elderly people's living and nursing, and rural residents' sightseeing and leisure, introduce products that meet the consumption preferences and payment ability of these groups, and create more new tourism experience scenarios, Dai added.

To maintain market vitality, the institutions should continue to introduce quality works, enrich product supply, and innovate marketing models to enhance influence, Liu said.