Chinese Olympic fans watch the 2024 Paris Olympic Games in a cinema in China. Photo: CCTV

 

China's box-office revenue for the 2024 summer movie season, which runs from June to August, exceeded 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) as of Saturday night, data from the Chinese movie ticketing platform Beacon showed.

The excellent performance of the summer box office mirrors recovering domestic consumption. Thanks to policies such as consumption vouchers and free tickets, diversified products and the continuous optimization of public services and infrastructure, cultural and tourism consumption during the summer will remain an engine for boosting economic growth in the third quarter, experts noted.

According to Beacon, films including comedy Successor, crime thriller A Place Called Silence and romance Moments We Shared topped the box-office chart.

So far, 138 films have been released or scheduled for this summer, with an ample supply and a greater diversity of themes and genres, Beacon said.

Tourism is also booming during this summer, including night tours, cultural tours, self-driving trips and study tours, with multi-scene and new businesses emerging.

Trip.com said domestic car rentals and self-driving orders this summer were up more than 40 percent year-on-year, according to a report it sent to the Global Times on Sunday.

The number of single-day orders set a new peak on the platform, rising 50 percent year-on-year, and the average per capita spending on car rentals rose by 20 percent, said the report.

Parent-child tourism constitutes the main force of summer travel. Data from Trip.com showed that such trips accounted for nearly 40 percent of China's total trips, with study tour-related bookings up 70 percent year-on-year.

"Influenced by multiple factors such as demand pull, supply innovation and policy promotion, this summer's culture and tourism market has been innovative and gets hotter by the day," Zhang Yi, CEO of iiMedia Research Institute, told the Global Times on Sunday.

According to domestic media outlet stcn.com, localities across the country are expected to organize more than 37,000 cultural and tourism events this summer, and issue tourism-related consumption vouchers worth more than 400 million yuan.

Wang Peng, an associate research fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, said that from theaters to scenic spots, the supply of personalized and diversified cultural products continues to stimulate consumption.

"Digitalized consumption scenarios will become more diverse. For example, the application of technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality will bring consumers a more immersive entertainment experience," Wang told the Global Times on Sunday.

The State Council, the cabinet, on August 3 unveiled a guideline on boosting the high-quality development of services consumption. More measures will be taken to boost the vitality of life-enhancing consumption, including cultural and tourism promotions across the country.

The National Bureau of Statistics said that in the first seven months, retail sales of services rose 7.2 percent year-on-year - 4.1 percentage points higher than the growth rate of retail sales of goods. The cultural and tourism consumption market remains active, with faster growth in the consumption of transportation, catering, recreation and other related services.

Driven by summer consumption, third-quarter retail sales are expected to maintain growth, Wang noted.

"Consumption will continue to play a key role in terms of full-year GDP growth," Zhang said.

The resilience of economic growth in the second half of the year depends on consumption. Following the trade-in policy to increase support for commodity consumption, ultra-long-term special treasury bonds and special-purpose debts of local governments should focus on enhancing the willingness of consumers to spend, Zhong Zhengsheng, chief economist at PingAn Securities, said in a report by stcn.com.

In order to further boost domestic consumption, the government should continue to increase policy support, such as reducing taxes and fees and increasing personal incomes. In addition, authorities should optimize the consumption environment, improve the consumption infrastructure and actively cultivate new fields, such as digital consumption, green consumption and healthy consumption, Wang said.