As the New Year's Day holiday approaches, the cultural tourism market is heating up rapidly. Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City, according to information obtained by Times Finance from multiple OTAs and traditional travel agencies, shows that bookings for 2026 New Year's Day travel products have significantly surpassed the same period in previous years. Theme parks offering immersive experiences have become one of the most sought-after destinations for ringing in the new year. Data from several travel platforms indicate that Harbin Ice and Snow World is the most popular, with its official ticketing platform showing that tickets for the New Year's Eve event on December 31st were sold out well in advance. Furthermore, established theme parks like Shanghai Disney Resort, Beijing Universal Resort, and Hong Kong Disneyland remain highly popular.
Amidst the crowd of top-tier online sensations, Henan Kaifeng's Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City has broken through as a standout. Data provided by Tujia shows that during the 2026 New Year's Day period, bookings for homestays around Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City increased by 15 times year-on-year, driving Kaifeng's city-wide homestay booking growth rate to lead among national cities.
The popularity leading to New Year's Day has already prompted crowd control measures, with surrounding homestay bookings surging 15-fold. For the first short holiday of 2026, Wansui Mountain is expected to maintain its火爆 popularity. It is reported that Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City covers an area of over 500 acres. It is a theme park built on the original site of a national forest park, centered on Song Dynasty martial arts culture, and was designated as a Chinese AAAA-level tourist attraction in 2018. On December 24th, the official Weibo account of Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City announced that to ensure a safer and more comfortable visitor experience from December 31, 2025, to January 1, 2026, the park ticket would be temporarily adjusted to allow one entry per person to each of the four scenic areas within the park over a three-day period. Previously, Wansui Mountain operated on a three-day unlimited entry ticket model.
This adjustment to the ticket policy is Wansui Mountain's response to the anticipated peak visitor flow during the New Year's Day holiday. With less than a week to go before New Year's Day, the popularity of Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City has already surged prematurely, attracting many tourists traveling during off-peak times to Kaifeng, Henan. On social media, some visitors jokingly remarked that the recent local crowds were "comparable to Chinese New Year" and that "it feels like there are a hundred million people at Wansui Mountain." However, some locals from Kaifeng, Henan, pointed out that while the Wansui Mountain scenic area is vast overall, its elongated terrain leads to crowded conditions in certain areas, particularly around the "Matchmaking Granny Wang" stage, affecting the experience - "even someone 1.8 meters tall standing on tiptoe can't see Granny Wang."
Despite this, it has not dampened the enthusiasm of tourists from all over flocking to Wansui Mountain to check in. Fliggy travel noted that Kaifeng, Henan,凭借 the highly immersive NPC performances at the "Wansui Mountain"景区, has become a dark horse destination for the New Year's Day holiday. According to a check by Times Finance on December 30th, high-speed train tickets to Kaifeng, Henan, from multiple directions across the country during the New Year period were already sold out.
Accommodation bookings are equally火爆. As Kaifeng has relatively few large chain hotels, homestays have become the choice for many tourists. A representative from an OTA platform mentioned that currently, the number of homestays within a two-kilometer radius of the Martial Arts City is more than five times that of hotels. Data provided by Tujia shows that for the 2026 New Year's Day, Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City is the hottest scenic spot in Kaifeng, with surrounding homestay bookings increasing by 15 times year-on-year. As of December 30th, the "Huanian Homestay" was almost fully booked for the New Year period, with only one room remaining available for January 2nd. This homestay is located just 1.3 kilometers from Wansui Mountain. The homestay owner revealed that a month before the 2026 New Year, 60% of the rooms had already been booked.
The break-out success of this Chinese-style theme park sees visitor numbers rivaling Disney. In 2025, Wansui Mountain truly became a hit. A "2025 Cultural Tourism Data Report" released by Douyin Life Services on December 24th showed that Kaifeng ranked among the top ten popular "hidden gem" cities nationwide, while Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City was listed among the top ten popular attractions nationally, placing it in the top tier alongside Shanghai Disney Resort and Beijing Universal Resort. According to disclosures from the Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City official Weibo, as of October 31st, the park had received a total of 20.775 million visitors (including those with 3-day unlimited entry passes), achieving comprehensive revenue of 1.077 billion yuan. Based on this calculation, the park's average daily visitor reception reached 69,000 people, nearly comparable to the usual daily footfall at Shanghai Disney. According to data disclosed by the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) in October this year, Shanghai Disneyland received 14.7 million visitors in 2024.
In fact, Wansui Mountain did not just "break out" this year. As early as 2024, its matchmaking interactive show "Matchmaking Granny Wang" became a phenomenon-level IP; during the National Day holiday that same year, the park received 596,700 visitors, marking the beginning of its rapid growth in客流. This year, characters like the hugely popular "Granny Lü," "Zhuangyuan Lang" (Top Scholar), and "Caishen" (God of Wealth) have further propelled Wansui Mountain's popularity on social media. The interactive program "Matchmaking Granny Wang" at Wansui Mountain.
An industry insider with experience managing cultural tourism projects told Times Finance that the core reason for the breakout success of local parks like Wansui Mountain this year lies in abandoning the traditional operational mindset of "one-time sightseeing" and instead focusing deeply on creating classic IPs and immersive NPC performances. Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City has deconstructed classic literary works like "Water Margin" into over 300 theatrical acts and more than 900 small-scale performances, with over 3,000 interactive shows daily, earning it nicknames like the "Chinese Disney" or "Martial Arts Version of Disney." The park employs approximately 3,000 actors, including 1,500 NPCs. Recently, Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City posted a recruitment notice on the Kaifeng Human Resources website seeking dancers, martial artists, acrobats, hosts, NPCs, extras, and drama actors, with monthly salaries ranging from 5,000 to 9,000 yuan. The notice specifically noted a "large demand for positions, an overall gap of about 500 people, requiring continuous exposure."
Affordability is the first impression most visitors have of Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City. It is reported that Wansui Mountain implements a "100 Yuan Three-Day Pass" policy, where a 100 yuan pass is valid for three days, allowing unlimited entry during regular hours. Before October of this year, this pass even cost only 80 yuan. Furthermore, secondary consumption within the park follows a budget-friendly路线, with items like 2 yuan bottled water, 3 yuan sausages, and 12 yuan stewed noodles winning the favor of many visitors. The aforementioned local from Kaifeng, Henan, mentioned that some goods are even cheaper than outside the park.
The highly immersive NPC performances, the unique "Silver Ticket" system (a form of social currency within the park where visitors earn tickets by interacting with NPCs and completing tasks, which can be exchanged for gifts), combined with the extremely high ticket cost-performance ratio, have propelled Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City to become a phenomenon-level hit attraction this year. A relevant负责人 from Tujia revealed to Times Finance that, fueled by话题发酵 on social platforms, bookings for homestays around Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City on their platform have seen rapid growth since April this year; during the peak summer season in August and the National Day holiday in October, bookings reached the two major annual peaks, with some popular homestays having no rooms available. Data provided by Tujia shows that the number of homestays around Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City this year has more than doubled compared to last year.
Huanian Homestay opened in September this year and has already received guests from all over the country, including many foreign tourists. In Sunlitang New Village, where the homestay is located, many locals have joined the ranks of homestay entrepreneurs. In the fiercely competitive red ocean of theme parks dominated by international giants, this local Henan attraction has successfully carved out a path by leveraging its two key "tickets": emotional value and extreme cost-effectiveness.