As the 2026 Spring Festival approaches, various regions are launching a rich array of consumption-boosting activities centered around elements like folk customs, ice and snow activities, and culinary delights. These initiatives are accompanied by supporting measures such as distributing consumption vouchers, discounted attraction tickets, and hotel coupons to stimulate holiday cultural and tourism spending.

For instance, Sichuan will invest over 40 million yuan in consumption incentives, including 20 million yuan in cultural tourism vouchers, 16 million yuan in movie vouchers, and 100,000 free attraction tickets. Guangdong is hosting the "Celebrate the New Year in Guangdong" event, during which it will distribute a total of 60 million yuan in cultural tourism vouchers to both domestic and international visitors to the province, as well as local residents. The launch ceremony for the "Charm of Jiangsu: Inviting You for the New Year" cultural tourism promotion campaign was recently held. It is reported that before the Spring Festival holiday, cultural tourism enterprises across Jiangsu will introduce more than 300 preferential measures, including tourism vouchers, discounted attraction tickets, hotel coupons, and convenient shuttle services.

Fu Yifu, a special researcher at Sushang Bank, stated in an interview that the intensified efforts by various regions to promote cultural tourism during the Spring Festival are primarily based on four considerations. First, to stabilize the economy and expand domestic demand, as cultural tourism is a major consumption sector; leveraging the Spring Festival peak consumption season can quickly boost the recovery of the service industry and help achieve a stable start to the annual economy. Second, to benefit people's livelihoods and enhance welfare, as there is strong concentrated demand for travel during the Spring Festival; preferential measures lower the threshold for consumption, precisely meeting needs such as family trips and folk custom experiences, thereby increasing public happiness. Third, to strengthen the industry and promote recovery, as cultural tourism is linked to multiple sectors like catering and accommodation; it can effectively increase income for small and medium-sized businesses, alleviate operational pressures in the industry, and drive quality improvements in cultural tourism. Fourth, to promote culture and build brands; by deeply exploring local folk customs and characteristic resources through the Spring Festival context, it can both inherit traditional culture and enhance the reputation of regional cultural tourism, building momentum for the industry's long-term development, which aligns with the national policy direction of cultivating new growth points in cultural tourism.

Liu Chunsheng, an associate professor at the Central University of Finance and Economics, expressed that the focus on cultural tourism consumption by various regions is a concrete practice of implementing policies to expand domestic demand. It can meet residents' cultural tourism consumption needs while driving the integrated upgrading of the cultural tourism industry and employment, leveraging the Spring Festival consumption peak to stimulate economic growth.

In Fu Yifu's view, the recent cultural tourism promotion activities across regions have three distinct highlights. First, the incentives are substantial and targeted, with significant investments in places like Guangdong and Sichuan; consumption vouchers cover full-scenario uses like tickets and hotels, while coordinated efforts with financial institutions achieve叠加 discounts, balancing inclusivity and specificity. Second, the content supply closely matches demand, preserving traditional festive elements like temple fairs and intangible cultural heritage performances while adding trendy scenes like ice and snow carnivals and specialty markets to suit different customer groups. Finally, there is integration of formats and innovation in channels; regions are advancing the "cultural tourism plus" model while seamlessly serving both domestic and international tourists, allowing overseas visitors to conveniently claim vouchers, achieving comprehensive regional linkage and all-chain benefits for the people.

How can the potential for Spring Festival cultural tourism consumption be further tapped? Liu Chunsheng suggested optimizing policies such as staggered holidays and targeted subsidies, and lowering consumption thresholds through government-enterprise-financial institution collaboration. Simultaneously, upgrading the cultural tourism supply and deeply cultivating local IPs is necessary. Furthermore, optimizing consumption scenarios and services, boosting the night-time economy, improving smart services, strengthening new media marketing, and enhancing regional coordination can make cultural tourism consumption an important engine for driving domestic demand, inheriting culture, and empowering the economy.

Fu Yifu believes efforts are needed from three aspects: supply, scenarios, and mechanisms. First, upgrade product supply by deeply cultivating regional characteristics, transforming resources like folk customs and ice and snow into immersive experience projects, developing niche products such as parent-child study tours and wellness slow travel, and supporting them with cultural and creative derivatives to address homogeneity issues. Second, enrich consumption scenarios by extending the night-time economy chain, adding formats like lantern festivals and night cruise routes, revitalizing business districts and idle spaces to create cultural tourism markets, and promoting regional linkage to launch inter-provincial joint tour routes for mutual tourist exchange. Third, improve long-term mechanisms by optimizing the distribution methods of consumption vouchers to precisely match the needs of different groups, strengthening supporting guarantees like transportation and parking, and enhancing the service experience. Meanwhile, leveraging the Spring Festival momentum to build a customer base, introducing off-peak travel discounts, and transforming short-term consumption into regular consumption can continuously unleash the vitality of cultural tourism spending.