During the National Day holiday, when you walk into a scenic spot, the moments when you need to pay may be more numerous than you imagined.
First, you buy an admission ticket to enter. If the attraction is on a mountain, you also need to buy a shuttle bus ticket or a cable car ticket. When you get tired, you find a restaurant to eat, then in the afternoon join an intangible cultural heritage handicraft experience, interact with NPCs and take photos, and in the evening watch a performance. If the scenic area is large enough, you may even stay overnight and continue exploring the next day.
For tourists, this is an increasingly rich trip. For scenic spots, every additional spending link is a revenue opportunity. These scattered expenditures within a single trip are the result of the transformation of scenic areas away from a "ticket economy."
This transformation has been underway for many years. As early as eight years ago, relevant authorities issued a document proposing to lower the excessively high ticket prices of key state-owned scenic spots, address the problem of some places relying excessively on the "ticket economy," and explicitly proposed promoting the tourism industry's transition from a "ticket economy" to an "industrial economy." The document also specifically required that while ticket prices are reduced, prices for other tour services such as transportation within scenic areas must not be raised, thereby indirectly increasing the burden on tourists.
A very clear question is placed before scenic spots: where can revenue beyond tickets be found? We reviewed the financial reports of six typical listed scenic spot companies over the past eight years, and the conclusions emerged: the first business to be scaled up was transportation such as cable cars, ropeways, and sightseeing vehicles; how to retain tourists longer to increase secondary consumption is another answer for revenue growth; and in the past two years, new experiences such as internet-famous NPCs and sports events have become a trend.
01 The "second curve" is hidden on the way up the mountain
Beyond tickets, the first thing to be scaled up was transportation. Judging from the financial reports of listed companies such as Huangshan Tourism Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Huangshan Tourism), Lijiang Yulong Tourism Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Lijiang Shares), and Changbai Mountain Tourism Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Changbai Mountain) over the past eight years, one fairly obvious common point is that transportation-related businesses have become an important part of the revenue structure of scenic spots, and are often more stable than other non-ticket businesses.
Huangshan Tourism is a relatively typical example. In 2018, Huangshan Tourism's cable car and ropeway business revenue was 496 million yuan, accounting for 31% of that year's operating revenue; by 2025, this figure had grown to 842 million yuan, with its share rising to 40%, making it the company's largest single revenue source. During the same period, the revenue from the "landscape development business" disclosed by the company (renamed "scenic area business" starting in 2021) grew from 230 million yuan to 293 million yuan, with its share remaining between 11% and 14%. Here, "landscape development business/scenic area business" mainly corresponds to ticket-related revenue sharing from the Huangshan scenic area, and is not equivalent to the full amount of ticket money actually paid by tourists. But from the revenue structure, at least it can be seen that the scale of ticket-related revenue has changed little over the years, while transportation-related revenue has continued to expand.
More noteworthy is the profitability of transportation-related businesses. In 2018, the gross margin of Huangshan Tourism's cable car and ropeway business reached 86.74%, and by 2025 it was still 75.2%.
Lijiang Shares also shows a similar structure. In 2018, Lijiang Shares' ropeway transportation business revenue was 390 million yuan, accounting for 58% of operating revenue, with a gross margin of 84.24%. In September of that year, the Yunnan Provincial Price Bureau announced a reduction in the price of the Yulong Snow Mountain tourist passenger ropeway. The company mentioned in its financial report that the price adjustment had a relatively large impact on its operating performance in the fourth quarter of that year. But the price decline did not reduce the importance of transportation-related business in the scenic spot's revenue structure. In 2025, Lijiang Shares' ropeway transportation business revenue was still 407 million yuan, accounting for 47% of operating revenue, with a gross margin of 84.72%. Over eight years, it has remained one of the company's most important revenue sources.
Changbai Mountain's transportation-related business is even more prominent. In 2018, the company's tourist operations business (later renamed "tourism passenger transport business") revenue was 323 million yuan, accounting for 70% of operating revenue, and in 2025 it reached 520 million yuan, accounting for 66%. According to the financial report, tourism passenger transport is Changbai Mountain's core business, mainly involving tourist transportation within the three scenic areas of Changbai Mountain, tourist vehicle leasing, parking lot management, and other businesses.
From these cases, there is a very practical reason why transportation-related business became the "second curve": among the various businesses of scenic spots, transportation projects such as ropeways, cable cars, and sightseeing vehicles often have relatively rigid demand and also relatively high operating efficiency. For mountain-type scenic spots such as Huangshan, Yulong Snow Mountain, and Changbai Mountain, the core landscapes are not in places tourists can reach at will. Ropeways, cable cars, scenic buses, and sightseeing vehicles are themselves infrastructure in the touring chain, and it is difficult for tourists to completely avoid them after entering the scenic area.
This business model can even affect the spatial design of scenic spots. Some scenic areas place tourist distribution centers and parking lots outside the core scenic area, and some scenic areas have expanded outward by more than ten or even dozens of kilometers just to block private cars at the gate, then complete internal transfers through shuttle buses, ropeways, or sightseeing vehicles. This has also made "scenic area gates being built farther and farther away" one of the topics that comes up for discussion from time to time in recent years.
In 2023, Sohu News' Sixiang Studio noted the phenomenon that scenic area "gates are built farther and farther away, and small transportation fleeces tourists in various ways," using the Chaka Salt Lake scenic area in Qinghai as an example. The ticket for Chaka Salt Lake is only 60 yuan, but if following the officially recommended touring method, the actual ticket plus small transportation spending needs to be nearly 200 yuan per person. Even if choosing the relatively cheaper train in and out, each person still needs to spend 170 yuan to complete the tour. On this basis, Sixiang Studio calculated that the price per kilometer of the salt lake scenic area's small train was as high as 15.63 yuan, while China's G-series high-speed rail ticket price is only 0.46 yuan per kilometer, a 30-fold difference between the two.
For another example, in 2024, China Newsweek reported a dispute over transportation charges at the Yellow River Stone Forest scenic area in Gansu. After tourists enter the scenic area, private cars cannot continue deeper, and they need to purchase transportation services including shuttle buses and sightseeing vehicles. The reasons given by the scenic area include increased tourist numbers, limited parking capacity, and safety management. This is the other side of transportation as the "second curve." It can indeed bring stable revenue to scenic spots, but it does not mean all transportation charges are acceptable to tourists. Especially when transportation becomes a necessary link for entering core attractions, price, service, and charging methods can easily affect tourists' perception of the scenic spot's overall pricing.
For scenic spots, transportation is a relatively mature and stable business, but it is not the endpoint. What truly determines whether a scenic spot can move from a "ticket economy" to an "industrial economy" is whether tourists, after arriving, can stay a few more hours, stay one more night, and during that time, how many things they are willing to keep paying for.
02 Finding ways to make tourists stay
In the past, the touring logic of scenic spots was relatively simple: buy a ticket, look at the scenery, take photos, and leave after a few hours. Tourists' stay time was limited, and beyond tickets and transportation, it was difficult to generate more consumption. Under this logic, dining, shopping, accommodation, and entertainment experiences became the answers scenic spots found for increasing revenue.
Wang Binshan, deputy secretary-general of the Planning Professional Committee of the China Tourist Attractions Association and deputy chief planner of Tsinghua Tongheng Planning and Design Institute, calls this type of revenue secondary consumption. Among the five listed companies we reviewed that separately disclosed hotel business revenue, four saw the proportion of hotel business revenue rise significantly over the past eight years. For example, Jiangsu Tianmu Lake Tourism Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Tianmu Lake) had hotel revenue of 95 million yuan in 2018, accounting for 19% of operating revenue; in 2025 hotel revenue reached 154 million yuan, with its share rising to 30%. During the same period, the share of scenic area business revenue fell from 74% to 51%. The share of hotel business revenue of Lijiang Shares, Changbai Mountain, and Xi'an Qujiang Cultural Tourism Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Qujiang Cultural Tourism) also showed a similar upward trend.
When a scenic area hotel sells one room, it is actually selling more than one night. If a tourist stays one more night, that means one more meal, one more hot spring visit, or one more performance. The original few-hour sightseeing itinerary is stretched into two days and one night, and only then does the scenic spot have more opportunities to keep consumption within its operating scope. Hotels therefore become a link connecting tickets and other consumption.
But doing more secondary consumption does not mean scenic spots earn more. In 2025, Qujiang Cultural Tourism's hotel and catering business revenue was about 240 million yuan, accounting for 25% of operating revenue, but the gross margin was only 4.9%.
Therefore, to make tourists willing to stay and spend more, scenic spots still need to find consumption scenarios worth paying for and worth investing in. The Wuzhen scenic area operated by CYTS made such an attempt relatively early. In 2019, Wuzhen received 9.1826 million visitors, a year-on-year increase of only 0.35%, but full-year operating revenue reached 2.179 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.39%, and net profit was 807 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.97%. This meant that the consumption created per visitor was higher. In an industry environment of intensifying competition and ticket price cuts, it did not simply rely on tickets and traditional sightseeing, but turned the scenic area into a place that could continuously generate topics.
For example, the conference facilities and service capabilities brought by the World Internet Conference continued to be used to host various conferences and events; the Wuzhen Theatre Festival became an independent cultural IP, and the Mu Xin Art Museum continued to hold art activities; Wucun added leisure products such as parent-child activities, summer camps, rice field swimming pools, and folk song classes. Tourists can come to Wuzhen for a conference, and they can also come again for the theatre festival; they can stay inside the scenic area and bring their children for a holiday in Wucun.
Under this trend, what scenic spots operate is no longer just an attraction, but a complete period of time belonging to tourists. However, hotels, hot springs, and traditional performances such as Impression Lijiang and the Romance Show series are essentially relatively fixed products. How to give tourists an immersive experience has become a new trend in the past two years.
"What is needed now is immersive experience, letting tourists go from 'just taking a look' to 'staying a while longer.' Through interactive projects, immersive performances, cultural displays, and so on, tourists can feel, participate, gain a deeper understanding of local culture, and truly enter the environment," Wang Binshan said.
Internet-famous NPCs are one typical example. According to Qujiang Cultural Tourism's financial report, in 2024, the company's scenic area operation and management business revenue accounted for about 52%. The scenic areas it manages, such as Tang Paradise, Giant Wild Goose Pagoda, and Grand Tang Mall, already have mature performance products such as Dreaming Back to the Tang Dynasty, Chasing Dreams of the Tang Dynasty, and Dreaming of Chang'an. At the same time, the company is also continuously adding "interactive entertainment" content, and "Tumbler Lady" and "Secret Box of the Prosperous Tang" are two of its most widely known IPs. The "Tumbler Lady," who became popular in 2019, did not change the architecture, historical relics, or street length of Grand Tang Mall, but it gave tourists a specific reason to visit: to hold hands once with the "Tumbler Lady." At that time, the "Tumbler" topic at Grand Tang Mall gained a large amount of spread on social platforms, and during performance periods the performance area often gathered large numbers of tourists.
In addition to "holding hands once" with an internet-famous NPC, visitors to Kaifeng Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City can immersively experience even more. Waiters in shops on the street will actively start conversations, and tourists can play finger-guessing games and accept tasks; characters keep appearing in different areas, and performances and interactions are interspersed along the touring route; the scenic area has more than 2,000 performers and staff, and daily performances and interactive activities can reach more than 3,000. On social platforms, the single topic "Wansui Mountain NPC" alone has more than 520 million views. Immersive experiential touring lengthens stay time and enriches consumption scenarios. In the first half of 2025, Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City received 10.242 million visitors and achieved comprehensive revenue of 604 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 162%.
Sports events follow a similar logic. In 2021, Qujiang Cultural Tourism included sports project business in its main business scope, including large-scale road running and trail running events, as well as business travel services, online malls, and event technical services. By 2025, revenue from this business was about 176 million yuan, accounting for about 18% of the company's revenue. A marathon does not bring only registration income. Participants need to arrive in advance, creating clear demand for accommodation, dining, and transportation, and after the race they may continue to tour the city. For scenic spots and cities, events are equivalent to actively creating a group of tourists with a high probability of staying there for a day or two.
03 Conclusion: Tickets have not disappeared, they have just become the starting point
Eight years later, the revenue structure of scenic spots has become more diversified. From the listed companies we reviewed, ticket-related revenue share and gross margin have indeed fluctuated, but new revenue has not and will not simply replace tickets.
Huangshan Tourism is a typical example. In 2018, its scenic area business revenue accounted for 14% of operating revenue; after ticket price adjustments, in 2025 its share was still 14%, with a gross margin of 46.46%; in 2025, its hotel revenue was 492 million yuan, with a gross margin of 32.57%; transportation revenue was 842 million yuan, with a gross margin of 75.2%. Hotels and transportation made the revenue structure richer, but did not replace the core profitability of the scenic area itself.
Wang Binshan believes that for A-level scenic spots, a relatively healthy revenue structure is one in which ticket revenue and secondary consumption each account for half. But currently, not many scenic spots can truly achieve this structure, and most still rely mainly on tickets.
"Behind this is actually related to the fact that China's tourism products have long centered on 'sightseeing.' When many old scenic spots were initially designed, they were meant for tourists to buy a ticket, quickly see the core attractions, and then leave. Their space, facilities, management, and services were all designed around the sightseeing economy. Scenic spots had already made money through tickets, so tourists leaving quickly actually meant more batches could be turned over in a day," Wang Binshan said.
The real change over the past eight years may not be that scenic spots found some revenue that can replace tickets, but that the position of tickets in scenic spot revenue has changed. For a scenic spot with scarce natural landscapes and cultural heritage, tickets are still a fee tourists pay for core resources. In scenic spots such as Huangshan, Yulong Snow Mountain, and Changbai Mountain, the landscape itself is the main reason tourists travel hundreds of kilometers to come here. Tickets are still the basic foundation of scenic spots, but scenic spots can no longer complete their business loop relying only on this sum of money. It is changing from the endpoint to the starting point.