From January 10th to 11th, the National Commerce Work Conference was held in Beijing, explicitly outlining core tasks such as accelerating the cultivation of new growth points in service consumption and unleashing the potential of service consumption. As a benchmark city for cultivating and building an international consumption center, Beijing has accelerated its pace in the innovation and upgrading of its physical commerce sector over the past year. Moving forward, how to promote the expansion and upgrade of goods consumption and create an internationalized consumption environment has become a key direction for Beijing's commercial sector to achieve sustained breakthroughs.
The commercial supply has been continuously expanding over the past year, with Beijing's physical commerce achieving multiple breakthroughs in commercial supply, spatial layout, and experiential innovation, injecting strong vitality into the consumer market. It was learned that in the first 11 months of 2025, Beijing added more than 960 first-store locations, achieving high-quality development in consumer scene innovation, diversified business format expansion, and optimized regional layout. Since 2019, Beijing has cumulatively attracted over 5,000 first stores to open, cultivating 12 global debut centers including Sanlitun Taikoo Li.
In terms of brand cultivation, the Beijing market presents a dazzling interplay of international style and Beijing's cultural charm. The concentration of international brands remains steadily among the top nationwide, with cumulative recognition of 26 regional headquarters of consumer multinational corporations, including Galeries Lafayette and Starbucks. The 2026 Beijing Fashion Week, leveraging iconic venues like Longfusi and Gubei Water Town, gathered over 300 global brands and created more than 150 offline fashion extravaganzas. Local brands are also thriving, with Beijing hosting a total of 274 time-honored brands, including 137 China Time-Honored Brands.
Furthermore, the construction of large-scale commercial facilities has simultaneously accelerated. In 2025, Beijing opened over 1 million square meters of new commercial space. Notably, the Wanli complex adjacent to Universal Studios Beijing was launched by year-end; the ART PARK West Zone of Zhongguancun Darongcheng commenced operations in May, with its East Zone also debuting in December; and the revitalized Friendship Store returned to the public eye with a new look. Beijing's physical commerce is no longer confined to the function of "goods transaction" but is shifting towards the creation of "scenario-based, immersive" experiences.
In the realm of business district upgrades, Beijing has issued quality enhancement policies for two consecutive years, focusing on supporting the transformation of consumption spaces from "single-function" to "multi-experiential." Concurrently, Beijing is constructing an integrated matrix encompassing "blocks, near-mountain, waterfront, performances, sporting events, digital, and nighttime" economies, promoting over a hundred typical cases such as Solana and TANKO. On another front, characteristic commercial blocks have become "city name cards." In the first half of this year, the renovation of Changxindian Commercial Pedestrian Street in Fengtai District was completed and it began operations, driving sales to exceed 7.3 million yuan and attracting approximately 850,000 visitors; Zhongguancun Darongcheng in Haidian District became the first park-style commercial benchmark in western Beijing; the Moshikou block in Shijingshan District was successfully selected as a national-level tourism and leisure block and incorporated into multiple cultural tourism routes, reinforcing the characteristics of the ancient western Beijing route.
The vitality of these blocks continues to be unleashed. The Jingzhuang Town Rural Outlet Commercial Street in Yanqing District opened for operation, connecting the 1-kilometer main street of Liugou Village to create a "Ancient City Relay" themed consumption belt; Fengtai District, centered on Changxindian, hosted five Guochao (national trend) events, integrating experiences like Nanmen Shuanrou and other Guochao intangible cultural heritage elements; Dongcheng District deepened its research on business districts and launched a special column "New Observations on Consumption in Dongcheng's Characteristic Blocks" to optimize the layout of business formats. From building diversified, integrated clusters to enriching fashion and cultural experience areas, from cultivating health and leisure functional zones to creating characteristic consumption blocks, Beijing is undertaking systematic, scenario-based "fashion cultivation" actions to build a consumption ecosystem that is interconnected across the entire city and active around the clock.
Catering consumption has become an important engine for boosting domestic demand. Since the 2026 New Year's Day holiday, the national catering market has been bustling with strong consumer momentum. According to a "Survey on the Operations of the Catering Industry during the 2026 New Year's Day Holiday" conducted by the China Cuisine Association, 58.1% of surveyed catering enterprises reported that customer traffic on New Year's Day was either increased or flat compared to the previous year, while 69.6% reported that takeaway order volume was increased or flat. Meituan data shows that during the 2026 New Year's Day holiday (January 1-2, 2026), the average daily consumption for dine-in catering on the platform increased by 19% compared to the 2025 New Year's Day holiday (January 1, 2025). Many catering outlets in Beijing experienced peak customer traffic, with some brands seeing revenue growth exceeding 10% on New Year's Day alone, and numerous restaurants having waitlists of three to four hundred tables simultaneously, indicating an exceptionally lively catering market.
Data released by the Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau shows that during the New Year's Day holiday, the average daily sales of key monitored catering formats increased by 4.6% year-on-year, with full-service restaurants seeing an average daily increase of 25.4%. To enhance catering services and promote holiday consumption, catering enterprises have improved the consumer experience by introducing holiday set menus, launching new products, conducting diverse and colorful activities, driving online traffic to offline consumption, and increasing interactive performances. Taking Haidilao as an example, to cope with the peak in dining consumption on New Year's Eve, Haidilao's Beijing outlets preemptively increased staffing, ensured sufficient material reserves, and provided services like drinks and snacks for waiting customers. On New Year's Eve, some outlets also arranged special activities such as interactive games and magic performances to create a festive atmosphere.
With just over a month left until the Spring Festival, reservations for the 2026 Lunar New Year's Eve dinner have already heated up significantly, with some time-honored restaurants even reporting that their private rooms for New Year's Eve are fully booked. According to Beijing Huatian Group, all private rooms for both lunch and dinner services (four time slots in total) at the renowned restaurants Tongchunyuan and Tongheju are fully booked, and the main halls are nearly full; private rooms at Makey Restaurant were snapped up early, making a table hard to come by; reservations for the Spring Festival Eve dinner at Xisi Huifeng Dumpling House are also completely full.
Promoting the high-quality development of the catering industry is a crucial part of stimulating consumption. Simultaneously, to assist Beijing in building an international consumption center city, promote Beijing's goal of becoming an international gourmet capital, and ensure the sustainable and healthy development of the capital's catering industry, relevant authorities have intensively introduced supporting policies this year. These aim to boost catering consumption through special campaigns to stimulate consumption and by cultivating new growth points. The "Beijing Action Plan for Expanding Fashion Consumption" mentions the need to polish the brand of the gourmet capital, create iconic catering landmarks, and build at least one characteristic catering gathering street in each of the central urban districts, Tongzhou District, and the plain new towns. It supports domestic and international catering enterprises in opening brand first stores in Beijing. It encourages linking catering with scenarios such as sporting events, performances, exhibitions, and festivals for coordinated consumption, and supports the introduction of quality catering into parks, scenic spots, public sports venues, performance venues, and museums. The plan also involves publishing and promoting food maps, enhancing the international level of catering services, and showcasing Beijing's culinary image in an all-round manner. It aims to cultivate "late-night canteen" characteristic catering streets that connect with nighttime sightseeing, performances, and other activities.
The National Commerce Work Conference emphasized that 2026 is the inaugural year of the 15th Five-Year Plan period, making commerce work highly significant. It stressed the importance of vigorously boosting consumption, advancing the construction of a strong domestic market, actively expanding independent opening-up, promoting innovative development in trade, expanding space for two-way investment cooperation, and achieving a good start for high-quality commerce development in the 15th Five-Year Plan period. Looking ahead, Beijing's commercial sector will continue to focus on "scene revitalization, business format integration, and service upgrades," making sustained efforts in the fields of physical commerce and service consumption.
The Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau indicated that, going forward, Beijing will improve the service system for the debut economy, supporting the creation of debut centers and first-store aggregation centers, the opening and development of brand first stores, and the hosting of debut, first-show, and first-exhibition events. Beijing will also innovate diversified service consumption scenarios, supporting the construction of multi-format integrated consumption scenes, the development of new consumption formats and models, the entry of key activities "into business districts, blocks, and scenic spots," and the establishment of foreign trade premium product exhibition and sales centers and shopping clusters. Simultaneously, Beijing will strengthen cross-border collaborations between high-quality consumer resources and well-known IPs, supporting the cultivation and conversion of IPs, the opening of IP theme stores, concept stores, and co-branded stores, the cultivation of "IP+" new consumption scenarios, and the creation of "Artificial Intelligence + Consumption" clusters.
In terms of developing an internationalized consumption environment, Beijing will enrich the supply of high-quality consumption, supporting the creation of international consumption clusters and inbound-tourist-friendly business districts, the clustered development of tax-free shops for overseas visitors, the development of convenient tax refund services like "instant refund upon purchase," and the expansion of tax-free sales for departing visitors. Concurrently, Beijing will optimize foreign-related payment services, supporting the addition of foreign-card POS machines, innovation in foreign payment services, and facilitating foreign currency exchange. To enhance the level of international services, Beijing will vigorously support key venues such as business districts, shopping malls, and tourist attractions in improving the international consumption environment by installing facilities like multi-lingual signs, smart translation equipment, and multi-functional service counters.
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