Shanghai receives 7.17 million tourists during Mid-Autumn holiday, debut economy drives consumption

Shanghai's cultural tourism consumption market experienced a significant surge during the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, coinciding with the 48th WorldSkills Competition held in the city. According to Shanghai tourism big data monitoring, from September 25 to 27, the city received a total of 7.1704 million visitors, with an average hotel room occupancy rate of 60.49%. As the WorldSkills Competition took place in Shanghai, international guests joined local residents in visiting ancient towns, gardens, and waterfront areas, participating in themed garden activities and immersing themselves in traditional folk customs and festive new scenes.

Cultural Tourism Integration: WorldSkills Spillover Effect Unleashes New Vitality

This Mid-Autumn Festival, Shanghai organized its holiday cultural tourism offerings around key themes such as traditional Chinese customs, exhibitions and performances, and urban tourism. The city coordinated resources from cultural venues, theater clusters, ancient town districts, commercial hubs, and suburban rural areas, creating a multi-point, layered, and segmented holiday product supply pattern.

To capitalize on the spillover effect of the WorldSkills Competition, Shanghai set up nearly 100 "Hu Xiao You" service centers, offering multilingual cultural tourism maps and over 100 premium travel routes to domestic and international visitors. More than 200 scenic spots introduced joint discounts. In the WorldSkills "Baigongji" intangible cultural heritage exhibition area, traditional crafts such as silk embroidery and lantern making were demonstrated live. Interactive experiences like rabbit lantern crafting and shadow puppetry promoted exchange and mutual learning between traditional skills and modern vocational techniques.

A variety of Mid-Autumn garden parties and cultural events were held for visitors from home and abroad:

• Guilin Park hosted the "Tang Yun Mid-Autumn" immersive Tang-style cultural gathering.
• Yu Garden launched the "Intangible Heritage Grand Yu Garden – Music Season," creatively building the first-ever水上 stage at the Nine-Bend Bridge.
• Fangta Park organized the "Fangta Appointment, Prosperous City" autumn cultural garden party.
• Jiading Town, leveraging the Shanghai Confucius Culture Festival platform, presented ritual music performances, garden gatherings, and cultural readings connecting ancient and modern contexts.

According to data from Tongcheng Travel, local scenic spot ticket booking popularity during the Mid-Autumn holiday increased by 17% year-on-year. Urban lantern festivals, ancient town parades, and cultural museum exhibitions were particularly popular among family and younger demographics. Scenic spots with strong cultural attributes and opportunities for in-depth exploration performed notably well.

Bicester Village Shanghai positioned itself as a city micro-vacation destination for the Mid-Autumn and National Day holidays, integrating elements from the Shanghai International Tourism Resort and Disney to stimulate holiday micro-vacation consumption.

Additionally, the Bund International Art Festival, the "Audiovisual Fantasy" immersive performance show, and the International Audiovisual Art Experience Exhibition were launched. The 3rd Shanghai International Light Festival set up multiple venues across the city, including Longhua Autumn Festival · Light and Shadow Longhua, Xujiahui ITC's "Floating Light Night Tour," and Jing'an Park's "Shining · Shanghai." These events used light projection art to enhance waterfront nighttime landscapes and enrich the city's nighttime cultural experience.

Over the three-day holiday, key events of the Shanghai Tourism Festival's classic activity season proceeded in an orderly manner:

• Changning District hosted the "Most Hongqiao" Carnival Golden Autumn Gala and the "Vibrant Hongqiao" Art Commercial District series, activating cultural tourism consumption through markets, performances, street art, and interactive experiences.
• Yangpu District organized the 2026 Shanghai University Student Tourism Carnival, in conjunction with the Yangpu venue of the Light Festival, leveraging university resources to set up stage performances, youth markets, and cultural and creative interaction zones.

The Shanghai Tourism Festival's 21 themed floats toured districts including Qingpu, Xuhui, Lingang, and Minhang, combining with city landmark flash mob performances to extend the festive atmosphere from core commercial areas to the entire city, promoting the mutual conversion of competition-related and holiday visitor flows.

The Tongcheng Research Institute analyzed that Mid-Autumn travel is shifting from sightseeing to "scenario-based experiences and quality consumption." The popularity of composite products such as night tours, agricultural activities, and performances indicates that users place greater value on cultural experiences and interactive participation. Destination competitiveness is transitioning from resource endowment to product integration capabilities. With the National Day holiday approaching, autumn-themed destinations and cross-border autumn-viewing routes are expected to maintain high popularity, and autumn cultural tourism consumption is likely to see a new round of growth.

Consumption Renewal: First-Release Economy Becomes the Main Engine for Attracting Visitors

During this holiday, Shanghai launched 200 consumption-promotion activities centered on six major themes: brand shopping, global cuisine, first releases and premieres, national trend cultural creations, sports events, and water town rustic charm. Among these, the first-release economy, as the brightest hallmark of an international consumption center city, was taken to new heights, with a wave of first stores, first exhibitions, and first shows making their debut.

For example, in Qingpu, nearly 80% of the approximately 200 brand tenants at Panlong Tiandi were first stores or concept stores.

During the Mid-Autumn holiday:

• The Pop Mart Urban Land Carnival Tour landed at No.1 Department Store and the Oriental Pearl TV Tower Square.
• Inside No.1 Department Store, the first "Shanghai Custom" comprehensive space pop-up event created by Bailian Group was in full swing.
• At Jing'an Kerry Center, the Chiikawa China mainland debut exhibition, which opened on September 12, ran through the Mid-Autumn and National Day holidays.
• At Suhewan万象天地, the Lace Family national debut exhibition, "Prelude Gift Box," premiered on September 25.

First exhibitions and first shows are no longer mere "decorations" for commercial districts but have become the "main engine" for attracting and gathering customers.

Photo by Pan Jie

New products launched in concentrated succession drove continuous upgrades in the consumption experience. Recently, Beiersdorf's Eucerin Soothing Repair series held its global launch at the Shanghai History Museum, using the proprietary SenSiCel technology to target core pain points of sensitive skin such as redness, stinging, burning, and dryness. "This year marks the 40th anniversary of the sister-city relationship between Shanghai and Hamburg. Beiersdorf's scientific research heritage comes from Hamburg, while Shanghai is an important window for us to get close to Chinese consumers and promote local innovation," said Xue Wei, Managing Director of Beiersdorf Group Northeast Asia.

Additionally, Estée Lauder Group's brand Dr.Jart+ launched the new 324 Intensive Repair Color Mask, addressing multiple skin concerns such as damaged barriers, redness, sensitivity, and loss of elasticity. The silk fibroin microsphere technology used in the product originated from local Chinese innovation and, with the support of Estée Lauder Group's open innovation system, achieved its first product application within the group.

In August this year, the Shanghai Municipal Government issued the Shanghai 15th Five-Year Plan for Accelerating the Construction of an International Trade Center, which clearly proposed key indicators for the "first-release economy" from a consumption perspective: adding approximately 900 high-energy first stores during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. The first-release economy featured in the 200 consumption-promotion activities during this Mid-Autumn holiday serves as the most vivid footnote to this upgrading process—when the first-release economy blends into everyday life and global trends enter daily consumption, Shanghai's festivals take on a distinctive "newness" and warmth.