During the 2026 Spring Festival period, the sports system in Gansu Province closely aligned with the theme "Celebrating the New Year with Sports, Welcoming the Year with Health," deeply integrating mass sports events with the "Happy Spring Festival Shopping" consumption promotion campaign. This initiative sparked a widespread fitness movement across the region, leveraging the power of sports to stimulate holiday spending, enrich public life, and contribute to economic and social development.
A four-tier competition system was implemented province-wide, covering provincial, municipal, county, and township levels. This structure precisely catered to the diverse fitness needs of different groups, creating a distinctive and varied matrix of events that ensured comprehensive coverage and accessibility at the grassroots level. Throughout the holiday, Gansu hosted a total of 286 mass sports events across its 14 prefectures and 86 counties. This included 1 national demonstration event, 2 provincial-level events, 10 municipal-level events, and 273 county and township-level events, directly engaging 1.23 million participants and attracting over 6.5 million spectators both on-site and through online interactions.
At the provincial level, three flagship events, including the main Gansu venue for the "National Fitness New Year Greetings" themed demonstration activity, played a leading and exemplary role, encouraging the tiered rollout of events in various localities. Municipally, 10 events—such as the Dingxi City Spring Festival Basketball Tournament, the Pingliang City "National Fitness New Year Greetings" series, and the Lanzhou New Area "Leaping Ahead to a New Beginning" public fun sports meet—became core components of local cultural and sports festivities. At the county and township level, 273 accessible and popular events, including village basketball invitationals, traditional folk sports demonstrations, and community fun sports meets, allowed residents to easily participate in and enjoy sports close to home.
The event types encompassed popular ball games like basketball and soccer, recreational fitness activities such as square dancing and Tai Chi, alongside unique events like tug-of-war and fun sports meets, catering to all age groups from children to seniors. Cities like Lanzhou, Tianshui, and Jiuquan innovatively introduced parent-child sports competitions and employee fitness contests, fostering a strong province-wide atmosphere where "everyone loves sports, every family enjoys health," and embedding the concept of national fitness deeply into public consciousness. Simultaneously, 140 public sports venues across the province offered free or low-cost access, cumulatively hosting 1.05 million fitness participants, making public exercise a defining feature of the Spring Festival celebrations.
The provincial sports system used events as a bridge to innovate a "sports + consumption" integrated model, transforming the influx of event participants into increased consumer spending and injecting robust momentum into the holiday market. Events served as platforms for commercial districts to thrive, creating integrated consumption scenarios. In Lanzhou, a New Year walk along the Yellow River scenic route concluded at a Spring Festival goods fair, with over 140,000 yuan worth of sports vouchers and shopping coupons distributed, linking fitness activities, riverside sightseeing, and local specialty purchases, thereby boosting surrounding餐饮, retail, and cultural creative industries. In Liangzhou District, Wuwei City, the "Sports Lottery Cup" village basketball invitational featured adjacent zones for intangible cultural heritage crafts and local snacks, with surrounding merchants seeing a sales increase of over 30% during the event. In Maiji District, Tianshui City, "Celebrate the New Year" competitions were combined with the commercial walking street area, where event tickets granted exclusive discounts at supermarkets and restaurants, achieving a mutual enhancement of event popularity and commercial vitality.
Sports venues upgraded their offerings to unleash consumption potential. While maintaining free or low-cost access, public venues partnered with nearby gyms and sporting goods stores for promotions like "fitness check-ins for discounts" and "spending rewards for spectators." Stores around venues such as the Lanzhou Olympic Sports Center and Jiuquan City Gymnasium reported a 25% increase in Spring Festival sales, establishing venues as key nodes for stimulating local consumption. Events also directly spurred purchasing by distributing over 10 million yuan in sports, cultural tourism, and agricultural product vouchers. In Ganzhou District, Zhangye City, and Ning County, Qingyang City, medals and certificates could be exchanged for supermarket gift cards or farm supply coupons. In Tongwei County, Dingxi City, specialty agricultural product exhibitions were set up at fitness events, with participants enjoying exclusive shopping benefits, allowing the public to reap consumption rewards through sports and deepening the "Happy Spring Festival Shopping" campaign.
Leveraging Gansu's regional characteristics and development context, the sports system promoted deep integration of sports events with cultural tourism, rural revitalization, and county-level economies, activating various development resources and empowering high-quality growth. The "sports + tourism" combination created new holiday travel scenarios. Aligned with the national strategy to expand winter sports, ski resorts like Songmingyan in Linxia and Qilian Mountain in Zhangye offered "skiing + accommodation + dining" holiday packages alongside snow sports events, driving a 30% increase in winter tourism spending and turning "cold resources" into "hot economic activity." In Dunhuang City, events like the "Chinese New Year · Dunhuang Tour: Healthy New Year Celebration" public fitness contest and the Lantern Festival square dance competition integrated sports with cultural tourism, leading to a 43% year-on-year increase in scenic area visitors during the events. Jiuquan and Jiayuguan jointly hosted the "Twin-City Run: A Mutual Journey" health run, connecting tourist attractions in both cities and attracting 450,000 online and offline participants, boosting ticket sales and cultural product revenue, thereby injecting sports energy into the twin-city economic circle development.
The "sports + rural revitalization" initiative activated new vitality in rural areas. Events held in villages and fields positioned sports as a key driver for rural development. The third "Village BA" in Taijing Town, Qinzhou District, Tianshui City, held in Dianzi Village, featured a rural New Year market nearby, with sales of local specialties like apples and peppers exceeding 200,000 yuan. The Harmonious Village Basketball Invitational in Wudu District, Longnan City, hosted in Nianjia Village, Jiaogong Town, spurred growth in surrounding rural tourism and农家乐 (farmhouse restaurants), increasing local incomes. The LinTan County 10,000-person Tug-of-War event blended rural folk culture, attracting spectators from neighboring areas and generating over one million yuan in local accommodation, dining, and agricultural product sales.
The "sports + county economy" approach cultivated new growth drivers at the county level. Localities used events to build distinctive county sports brands and upgrade local consumer markets. Events like the Zhenyuan County cadres and workers' fun run and the Huan County "March 8th" women's fun activities in Qingyang City warmed up dining, retail, and fitness sectors in county towns. In Zhuanglang County, Pingliang City, sports events were combined with local terrace landscapes to create a unique "Terrace Run," attracting participants from inside and outside the province and promoting the development of county tourism and the sports industry.
The successful hosting of the 2026 Spring Festival mass sports events has provided valuable experience for the development of public sports in Gansu Province. Adhering to a people-centered approach and accurately meeting public demand were key to achieving broad participation. Strengthening inter-departmental coordination and forming a collaborative effort ensured the smooth execution of events. Promoting the integrated "sports+" development model and creating distinctive brands proved to be a vital pathway for sports to contribute to economic and social progress.
Moving forward, Gansu Province will use these events as a foundation to further enhance the public service system for national fitness, increase investment in sports venue and facility construction, and widely organize mass sports activities to continuously improve public physical health and wellness. Concurrently, the province will continue to deepen the integrated "sports+" development model, tap into local resource advantages, create more influential sports event IPs, and promote the synergistic growth of the sports industry with other sectors, contributing to the goal of building a strong sports province and a healthy Gansu.
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