Chongqing- As the Spring Festival holiday passes its midpoint, tourism sites across the southwestern municipality of Chongqing are reporting strong visitor numbers, driven by a mix of intangible cultural heritage- traditional performing arts, crafts, and folk customs- and "guochao," a Chinese term for modern products and experiences inspired by traditional culture.
Fireworks light up the night sky during a holiday-themed performance at Chongqing Happy Valley. (Photo/Chongqing Happy Valley)
At Longxing Ancient Town in Chongqing Liangjiang New Area, a Spring Festival program opened on February 13. On the stone-paved streets, performers dressed in traditional opera costumes interact with visitors and stage folk dances such as the Lianxiao dance, in which two or more dancers rhythmically tap their backs, shoulders, arms and legs with sticks while singing and jumping.
Visitors take part in Chinese New Year-themed activities at Chongqing Longxing Ancient Town during the Spring Festival holiday. (Photo/Longxing Ancient Town)
"It's so interesting. It feels like traveling back in time to celebrate the New Year," said a resident surnamed Wang, visiting with his family. "I used to think ancient towns were just about looking at old houses. I didn't expect they could be experienced like this."
Traditional Sichuan Opera face-changing shows, and other heritage performances have rotated on the town's historic opera platform, while booths offering sugar painting and rice dumpling weaving drew crowds. Organizers also designed interactive tasks linking South Dragon Gate to the North Gate opera stage to create a tour route.
"We hope that through the innovative ancient town plus national trend format, young people will come in, stay, and engage," the event's planning director said, adding that music performances, qipao flash mobs, and themed photo spots were introduced alongside NPC-style interactions.
According to organizers, Longxing Ancient Town has recorded average daily visitor numbers exceeding 3,000 during the Spring Festival, more than 10% higher than the same period last year. They said the model has also boosted nearby catering and accommodation consumption.
At Chongqing Happy Valley, a theme park loved by young visitors, the folk performance "Datiehua"- molten iron thrown into the air to create showers of sparks- has been combined with aerial stunts and water-based dragon boat performances.
"For tourists, especially young families and Generation Z visitors, participation and cultural identity are very important," a representative from the park said. The park introduced an interactive "lucky money coin" game in which visitors earn tokens by participating in activities and exchange them for gifts or take part in a roast chicken auction. Between February 17 and 18, Chongqing Happy Valley received nearly 20,000 visitors, according to the park, and the program will run through the Lantern Festival.
Traditional performing arts have also drawn audiences. The Chongqing Sichuan Opera Theater staged 14 performances during the holiday, including "Mu Guiying's Marriage Proposal." A viewer born in the 1990s, surnamed Lin, said it was his first time attending: "I didn't expect the martial scenes to be so exciting and the singing to be so expressive."
"We hope that through traditional festivals like the Spring Festival, more young people will enter the theater and discover the beauty of Sichuan Opera," a theater representative said, adding that it is promoting market-oriented development through content innovation and deeper integration of culture and tourism.
A traditional "Datiehua" performance lights up the night at Meixin Wine Town. (Photo/Meixin Wine Town)
In Fuling district Chongqing, Meixin Wine Town reported 509,000 visitors in the first five days of the holiday, setting a new record for the same period. The site received nearly 50,000 visitors on February 15, the first day of its holiday program, and saw peak daily traffic on the third day of the Chinese New Year. Organizers said visitors could join interactive dragon and lion dances, horseback parades, rice cake pounding and calligraphy activities, alongside markets featuring heritage products, agricultural specialties and festival foods.