Shopping streets across province come alive with influx of visitors
Updated: 2023-02-17
A pedestrian street in Taiyuan is crowded with visitors during the Spring Festival holiday. [Photo by Wu Liuhong for China Daily]
The major commercial streets in Shanxi's large and medium-sized cities, especially pedestrian streets, welcomed a growing number of visitors and secured increasing revenues during the recent Spring Festival period. The results offer evidence of a strong recovery in the consumer market.
Data from the Shanxi Bureau of Commerce show the nine major pedestrian streets in Shanxi received more than 7.44 million visits and netted a combined business revenue of 520 million yuan ($75.97 million) from Chinese New Year's Day on Jan 22 through Lantern Festival on Feb 5.
"The figures are almost on a par with those during the same period of 2019," said Guo Xiaozhong, an official at the bureau.
In China, the consumer market has been among the hardest-hit during an economic slowdown resulting from the three-year COVID-19 pandemic which began at the end of 2019 and subsided at the end of 2022, Guo said.
Shanxi has developed nine pedestrian streets over the past years, with three in the provincial capital of Taiyuan and another six in Datong, Xinzhou, Yangquan, Jincheng, Pingyao and Changzhi. The province made the developments in hopes of creating new landmarks of commerce and offsetting the impact of COVID-19.
"On Shanxi's map of commerce, the nine streets have been among the fastest to recover because of their convenient transport systems, standardized operational environments and solid reputations," Guo said.
He added that local consumption has also risen after the venues hosted a number of promotional events, including shopping festivals, food galas and exhibitions of characteristic commodities to offer cost-effective options and immersive experiences to customers.
The Old County Seat of Taiyuan is both a renowned tourist destination and a favored commercial block in Taiyuan. During the Spring Festival period, its number of tourists and business revenue amount both increased about 56 percent from the same period last year.
This place is the venue where the blockbuster movie Full River Red was shot. The film's premiere during the holiday helped to push its daily visits to more than 10,000, according to Guo.
The Bell Tower Street, another major pedestrian street in Taiyuan, saw an even faster increase in visitors during the period.
According to local officials, the locale received 1.15 million visits during the half-month period from Lunar New Year to Lantern Festival, increasing 187 percent from the same period last year.
An official in charge of the street said Bell Tower Street is the longstanding shopping venue of Spring Festival goods for Taiyuan's local residents. He added that this year the promotional events on the street were designed to meet both the traditional and modern tastes of shoppers.
"For the people who came to buy Spring Festival goods, there was a traditional temple fair," the official said. "There was also a fair for shoppers of fashionable goods."
Another pedestrian street in Taiyuan, Zhongzheng Tianjie, tallied 161,000 visits from Jan 21-27, up 95 percent year-on-year.
Xinzhou Old Town, a commercial block in the city of Xinzhou, received nearly 1.40 million visits from Jan 22 to Feb 5, growing 10.54 percent from the same period last year.
The Nandajie pedestrian street in Jincheng notched 1.03 million visits during the same period, increasing 50 percent year-on-year. Its total business revenue reached 35 million yuan, up 20 percent.
Guo said he believes these pedestrian streets, as well as other commercial districts in Shanxi, will see stronger growth for the rest of this year as officials further optimize measures for pandemic prevention and control.
Yan Jie contributed to this story.