A city's youthfulness is not determined by the length of its history, but by its ability to provide a broad stage and fertile ground for young people to grow. This year's government work report proposed "promoting the deep integration of culture, commerce, tourism, sports, and exhibitions, extending the supply chain for large-scale event consumption, and creating more new consumption scenarios such as leisure, fashion, waterfront, and ice-snow activities," which is a powerful response to the development needs of the youth. Trendy IPs linking traditional culture, commercial spaces reshaping consumption matrices, ice-snow events unleashing vibrant energy, and high art blending into daily life—Beijing is developing diverse, integrated application scenarios across these sectors to build a city that is more friendly, inclusive, and dynamic for young people.
Commercial space upgrades and restructuring are creating new heights for entrepreneurship and consumption in Beijing. Traditional business districts are accelerating their iterative upgrades, being infused with youthful and creative new connotations. With the rise of trendy landmarks like THE BOX Chaowai and Wanli, a youth hub aggregating consumer vitality and entrepreneurial opportunities is taking shape. Located in Chaoyang District, THE BOX Chaowai has become a powerful magnet for young people through continuous innovation. As a commercial landmark positioning itself as a "global debut center," it breaks the traditional mall model of fixed brands, shortening store refresh cycles to just months or even weeks, and continuously attracts young groups with its high frequency of novelty. Since opening two years ago, it has intensively hosted various debut events and themed exhibitions, introduced over 50 first-store and flagship stores, and now hosts a total of over a hundred brands, building a dense and diverse matrix of youthful consumer power.
"The core of youthful power is actually original creativity," remarked Wei Ping, a Beijing Municipal People's Congress representative and Chairman of Beijing Chaoyang Culture & Tourism Development Group Co., Ltd., highlighting the key to THE BOX's ongoing appeal—it is not merely a commercial space, but an urban vitality innovation center integrating creativity, industry, and commerce. Its "symbiotic" ecosystem provides fertile ground for young creativity to grow. Leveraging the advantage of cultural-commercial-touristic-sports integration, Chaoyang Culture & Tourism Group transforms cultural, artistic, and trendy resources into tangible, experiential consumer products, creating a complete incubation path for original brands, trendy IPs, and young curators from "pop-up" to "permanent" presence. It supports young artists and curators with original design capabilities through favorable rental policies to convert pop-up experiments into fixed stores, effectively lowering the barrier to entrepreneurship. Simultaneously, through deep collaboration with universities like the Communication University of China and the Central Academy of Drama, it provides students with practical stages for hosting, performances, and artistic co-creation, seamlessly connecting campus creativity with urban spaces and keeping the district fresh with original vitality.
Similarly igniting the youth consumer market is the Wanli project in the sub-center. Bai Fan, a Beijing Municipal People's Congress representative and Party Committee Secretary and Chairman of Beijing Capital Tourism Group, revealed that since its trial operation began on January 19, the project has shown impressive visitor and sales figures. It attracted 110,000 visitors on its first trial day, peaked at 250,000 visitors the day after its official opening, saw 227,000 visitors on New Year's Day, and had cumulatively received over 3.3 million visitors by its one-month mark, with sales exceeding 300 million yuan. Bai Fan believes Wanli's success in attracting large crowds, especially young customers, stems from several advantages: significant transportation planning and scale benefits, with direct subway access to mezzanine commercial areas and Tingyun Town, and nearly 10,000 parking spaces fully meeting consumer travel needs; precise brand layout, with over 50% being national, Beijing, or sub-center debut stores; positioning as a micro-getaway destination, accurately aligning with the consumption preferences of Gen Z and young families; and a seamless operational model integrating commercial, non-standard formats, and hotels, significantly enhancing the consumer experience.
"Among the consumers here, over 35% are from outside Beijing, mainly from Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Northeast China, with personalized experiential stores and lifestyle outlets being particularly popular," Bai Fan noted. Addressing current issues like long queues and unstable network signals, the operational team is rapidly optimizing service processes and expanding the international tourist base to continuously enhance the project's appeal.
The deep integration of culture, commerce, tourism, sports, and exhibitions is expanding new lifestyle scenarios for young people. During the Two Sessions, how to "promote the deep integration of culture, commerce, tourism, sports, and exhibitions, and extend the supply chain for large-scale event consumption" became a focal point of discussion among representatives. There was a general consensus that through multi-format integration and scenario innovation, more young people can be encouraged to flock to Beijing. Regarding the popularization of high art, Gao Yin, a Beijing Municipal People's Congress representative and singer with the China National Opera & Dance Drama Theater, proposed the concept of "the whole city as a stage." She suggested that performance troupes strengthen cooperation with travel agencies to launch "travel with performances" tourism products, allowing tourists to visit sites like the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square during the day and enjoy high art such as opera, dance drama, and symphony concerts at venues like the Tianqiao Theater and the National Centre for the Performing Arts in the evening. Simultaneously, leveraging short video platforms to disseminate精彩 performance clips can attract a broader audience to live shows.
Gao Yin stated that troupes should persist in grassroots outreach, performing deep within campuses, communities, parks, and scenic spots, which both promotes art appreciation and provides valuable training opportunities for young performers. "The popularity of the 'National Daughter' phenomenon shows that high art has strong vitality among the public, and grassroots performances are an important path for the growth of young actors," she said. Rural cultural tourism is also exploring new paths for integrated development. Li Kejun, a Beijing Municipal People's Congress representative and President of the Mentougou District Homestay Association, introduced that the Wangping Ancient Trail Impression Town, using Ma Zhiyuan's former residence as a cultural landmark, is exploring the creation of a cultural-tourism consumption complex. The village now features not only kiln-baked bread, small bars, and文创 shops but also several painter studios, attracting a large number of young artists and "digital nomads." "In the future, we plan to reintegrate Mentougou's idle homestay assets to tap their potential value," she said.
Large-scale events have also become important engines for integrated consumption. Ma Xinming, a Beijing Municipal People's Congress representative and Party Group Secretary of the Municipal Federation of Literary and Art Circles, suggested leveraging holidays to boost integrated consumption across these sectors. He proposed creating original, immersive holiday themes that link elements like scenic areas, performances, dining, shopping, and transportation. For instance, the Lantern Festival could integrate lantern viewing and riddle guessing, traditional Chinese performances, intangible cultural heritage markets, and themed dining. He also suggested designing reasonable experience routes for precise "traffic" delivery via public transport or shuttle buses, and strengthening the "ticket stub economy," where ticket stubs provide discounts on dining, accommodation, attractions, business districts, and transportation citywide, extending the consumption chain.
The integration of the ice-snow economy and event economy has become a new growth point for consumption. Meng Lingyin, a Beijing Municipal People's Congress representative and Chief Engineer of the Engineering Department at Beijing National Alpine Skiing Co., Ltd., reported that the Yanqing Olympic Zone has seen continuously growing appeal since opening four years ago, attracting visitors including avid skiers from the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, family tourists, and international friends. Many visitors stay an extra night, exploring the Great Wall and the International Horticultural Exhibition park after participating in ice-snow sports. He recommended further integrating regional cultural tourism resources, embedding events, tourism, festivals, and cultural elements into ice-snow scenarios to enrich the tourist experience, allowing more young people to enjoy winter sports and driving qualitative improvement and expansion in regional consumption.
Trendy IPs are continuously breaking boundaries, linking traditional culture with youth aesthetics. During the inquiry and consultation activities for Municipal People's Congress representatives and CPPCC members held alongside the Two Sessions, the潮玩WAKUKU displayed at the Beijing Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau's booth attracted significant attention from delegates. "It's unexpected how well潮玩can integrate with traditional culture, intangible cultural heritage, and Beijing's local culture, allowing young people to engage with traditional culture in a more relaxed way," commented Cui Yong, a Beijing Municipal People's Congress representative and General Manager of Zhengyang Bookstore Ltd., highlighting the core value of潮玩in empowering cultural dissemination.
"潮玩has become an emerging format in the cultural tourism sector, particularly popular among young people. It meets their emotional needs while effectively driving cultural tourism consumption," revealed Zhang Jing, Director of the Resource Development Department at the Beijing Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau. The bureau is actively promoting cooperation between cultural tourism brands and leading潮玩IPs to revitalize traditional culture in ways beloved by the youth. The cultural crossover of潮玩is a vivid microcosm of Beijing's efforts to build a youth-friendly city. Gao Yin believes that Beijing, as an international exchange hub and cultural center, combined with its定位as a youth-friendly city, will possess more windows for exchange, attracting global youth for mutual visits and interactions. This will not only broaden the horizons and knowledge of local youth but also open up more avenues for their development.
In reality, the "two-way奔赴" between潮玩, high art, and young people is making cultural dissemination scenarios increasingly diverse. High art is stepping out of theaters and integrating into urban public spaces, with "the whole city as a stage" providing training grounds for young performers.潮玩, in its lightweight, fun form, brings traditional culture into the lives of young people, forming a complementary and symbiotic ecosystem for cultural dissemination. Regarding further promoting the deep integration of traditional culture and youth needs, Xu Zewei, a Beijing Municipal People's Congress representative and Chairman of 91 Technology Group, suggested establishing a high-level coordination mechanism for "culture, commerce, tourism, sports" to break down institutional barriers and create demonstration zones for integrated cultural tourism consumption; encouraging the creative transformation of cultural heritage, developing flagship "tourism+" and "sports+" projects to shift from "sightseeing destinations" to "deep experiential venues"; and building a full-chain service system of "attraction - experience - consumption - derivation" to convert visitor流量into incremental consumption.
Trendy commerce provides incubation soil for youth entrepreneurship, the integration of culture, commerce, tourism, sports, and exhibitions offers consumption and lifestyle scenes for the youth, and traditional culture achieves youthful expression through潮玩forms... Through comprehensive planning and diverse practices, Beijing is enabling young people to find satisfaction in consumption, realize value in entrepreneurship, and gain identity in culture. The city is demonstrating with concrete actions that being youth-friendly is not just about policy warmth, but also about the vitality of its scenes and the confidence in its development, sufficient to attract more young people to put down roots and grow here, jointly奔赴a better future with the city.
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