Shanghai serves as a vital window showcasing the nation's achievements in reform, opening-up, and modernization, and is also a key node for Chinese culture to reach the global stage. During the 2026 Shanghai Two Sessions, Tong Ke, a Shanghai Municipal People's Congress representative and Director of the Hongkou District Culture and Tourism Bureau, proposed stimulating innovation from four dimensions—"more international, more technological, more economic, and more open"—to create a Shanghai cultural tourism IP with international significance.
Data indicates that in 2024, Shanghai received 9.36 million inbound tourists, fully surpassing pre-2019 levels. However, a significant gap remains compared to global metropolises like New York, London, and Tokyo, urgently necessitating the development of culturally distinctive landmarks with international recognition to bridge this divide.
Tong Ke suggested that Shanghai cultivate culturally distinctive landmarks and events with global recognition, benchmarking against world-renowned cultural festivities such as Paris Fashion Week, Germany's Oktoberfest, and the Tokyo Music Festival. This includes fostering resident classic performances and promoting the international adaptation and touring of high-quality productions. Furthermore, cultural facilities should shift from being "business-oriented" to "consumer-oriented," encouraging tourists to voluntarily participate in Shanghai's cultural tourism activities. Efforts should also focus on transforming immersive exhibitions into consumable experiences, properly guiding public participation in AI-driven creation, formulating "effective, user-friendly, and practical" digital cultural tourism solutions, and continuously optimizing network access mechanisms for international visitors.
In 2025, Shanghai's total tourism industry revenue surpassed 600 billion yuan. However, relying solely on flash mob-type, small-scale, and fragmented cultural tourism activities makes it difficult to generate a clustering effect. Tong Ke recommended enhancing the synergy between cultural tourism and commerce to boost consumption and meticulously incorporating cultural tourism consumption data into statistics. Additionally, cultivating more consumption scenarios like "Labubu limited editions" should make "international brands available exclusively in Shanghai" a key strategy for attracting high-end consumption.
"Shanghai should become a national hub for premium Chinese cultural products, ensuring that when foreigners come to Shanghai, they recognize that Shanghai represents China." Tong Ke advocated for implementing a comprehensive opening-up strategy, strengthening cooperation with foreign consulates in Shanghai, attracting international tourist sources, and establishing Shanghai as a world-class cultural tourism destination.
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