Kickstarting Cultural Revival: How Sports and Tourism Unite in Yuxi’s Thriving Metropolis

Original title: Sports drive culture and empower tourism – Analysis on the integrated development path of Yuxi culture, sports and tourism

Football has become a new city card in Nie Er’s hometown, attracting tourists from all over the world to Yuxi to watch football, taste delicious food, enjoy the beautiful scenery, and experience “there is a kind of life called Yunnan.” Data map

Yuxi is the only contact point city for the national sports industry in our province, and the only state (city) with the emergence of “three-star” talents from the Olympic Star, Asian Star, and National Star. In recent years, Yuxi City has been committed to building a brand of high-quality plateau events. From January to August this year, the city held 243 events of various types and undertook 100 sports team trainings. The number of participants in events and trainings was 497,000, stimulating sports and related industries. The consumption and investment are about 380 million yuan, forming a good momentum of “going to Yuxi to watch football” in the province, and the integration of sports, commerce, cultural tourism and other industries. How to shape the city with business formats, develop the city with scenes, and prosper the city with culture, promote the integrated development of culture, sports, and tourism, so that the city’s traffic gathers, popularity increases, and consumption flourishes?

Football events gather resources, business formats, and popularity.

Since this year, Yuxi has used football matches as a breakthrough point to connect and integrate a series of resources such as special cultural activities, artistic performances, food, markets, business districts, intangible cultural heritage, scenic spots, etc., and strive to strengthen the sports, recreation and tourism product system and the construction of new consumption scenarios. , using the competition as a guide, to create a “combination boxing” of deep integration of cultural and sports tourism.

The economic driving effect of football is becoming increasingly prominent

On September 7, in the 22nd round of the Chinese Football Association League A, the home match between Yunnan Yukun Team and Guangxi Pingguo Halong Guojing Team started at the Yuxi Plateau Sports Center in Yunnan. 19,678 spectators came to watch, cheering and cheering could be heard all the time, and the atmosphere was very lively.

After tasting Yuxi’s traditional delicacy “Eight Big Bowls” and authentic eel rice noodles with his friends, Mr. Li, a Kunming fan, entered the stadium in an extremely comfortable mood to experience the charm of football and the enthusiasm for the game. “In the past, the food and beverage options available around the stadium were relatively simple. Now, in addition to various snacks at the football night market, you can also enjoy the long street banquet, which is very considerate.” Mr. Li said.

The football economy not only affects fans’ consumption experience, but also invigorates the consumer market and the night-time economy. Every night on game days, the Yousuo Mangrove Food Plaza in the central city of Yuxi is particularly lively. In addition to the main meal, the Gasa Soup Pot Food Restaurant also adds dishes, especially for night consumption. “Our average reception at night is more than 200 people, and the largest day has reached more than 300 people. I hope the government will increase publicity efforts to let more fans stop and slowly taste Yuxi.” said Zhang Shujing, operations director of Gasa Soup Pot Food Store .

A football match brings a city to life.

While seizing traffic and carrying out multi-dimensional publicity and marketing, the cultural and tourism department also actively integrates resources and links 42 hotels, scenic spots and travel agencies in the city to launch a cultural and tourism gift package for fans containing 51 discounts, which fans can enjoy with their game tickets. Hotel discounts, scenic spot discounts, tourist route discounts, etc. We organized a travel agency to customize and launch 10 purely fun tourism products, including a one-day tour of Hongta District, a one-day tour of Ailao Mountain in Xinping, and a one-day tour of Fuxian Lake in Chengjiang, and promoted them on platforms such as the “Yuxi Tourism Card”. In conjunction with the Yukun Football Club, we launched a campaign for group travel agencies to attract groups to Yukun and give away game tickets. At the same time, we continue to carry out online live broadcast activities for the “Yuxi Qingyi” brand intangible cultural heritage tourism products, and work with Yukun Football Club to actively explore the live broadcast business model of “football live broadcast + cultural tourism product exhibition and sales”.

“Since the beginning of this year, Yuxi has hosted a total of 12 home games for the Yunnan Yukun team in the Chinese League One, with an average of 19,000 attendees per game. Fans from 16 states (cities) across the province have come to Yuxi to watch the games, and the attendance rate ranks among the top in the Chinese League One. Through the launch of cultural tourism gift packages and the launch of the ‘Ticket+’ series of discounts to promote consumption, we have promoted the integration of sports, commerce, cultural tourism and other industries, forming a good momentum of ‘watching football in Yuxi’ across the province, and the economic boosting effect of football. It is becoming increasingly prominent,” said Wang Liping, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group of Yuxi Science and Education Innovation Service Center. According to statistics, in the first half of this year, Hongta District received a total of 7.5 million tourists, a year-on-year increase of 2.1%; achieved tourism revenue of 8.02 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.25%; the limited accommodation industry turnover was 122 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.09%. During the home games of the Yunnan Yukun Team of the Chinese League One, business districts such as Hongta District Wanda Plaza, Linan Sanqiancheng Shopping Park, and Yuxi Qinghua Street had a passenger flow of 725,000 people and an operating income of more than 38 million yuan. Compared with last weekend, the operating income and passenger flow of each round of competitions have increased significantly.

Turn event traffic into consumption increase

Yuxi is located in the core area of the “1-hour economic circle” in central Yunnan. It has unique transportation advantages, rich cultural and tourism resources, and a good foundation for the development of the sports industry. With the continuous improvement of sports tourism infrastructure such as Yunnan Yuxi Plateau Sports Center, Yuxi Plateau Football Training Base, Fuxian Lake Sailing Base, Yuanjiang Paraglider Flying Camp, Yuxi has initially formed three categories: “water, land and air” The sports tourism industry provides tourists and sports enthusiasts with a variety of sports tourism and fitness and sports options.

On September 8, the 2024 Yuxi City Outdoor Sports Carnival boutique event-Silicon Power Cup Yimen Green Juice 72-turn bicycle hill climb race was held. 340 players from all over the country rode passionately, experienced the unique charm of 72 roads and 108 turns, and admired the majestic and beautiful canyon scenery.

This event is one of the series of activities of “Enjoy the Outdoors and Travel to Yuxi with the Event”. It is also a concrete practice for our city to use events as a medium to further promote the integration of culture, sports and tourism. Since the beginning of this year, Yuxi has been based on its own reality and focused on the four major sectors of outdoor sports, national fitness, competition activities, and plateau training. With the goal of “traveling with events, mass sports to promote consumption, professional events to increase consumption, and plateau training to enhance advantages”, Yuxi has carried out in-depth Excavate local sports tourism cultural resources, actively promote the in-depth integration of sports, culture, and tourism, focus on the development of “sports + tourism”, “sports + outdoor”, “sports + health care” and other formats, and create unique features for each county (city, district) The form of sports industry.

According to the relevant person in charge of the Yuxi Municipal Education and Sports Bureau, in 2024 our city will use the theme of “A series of features, a game tour in Yuxi” to accurately plan brand events, focusing on cultivating the Yuxi City Outdoor Sports Carnival, Yuxi Marathon, and Fuxian Lake The half marathon, as well as the plateau sports training industry system, strive to be “all-region, all-category, all-round” to create a high-quality event brand on the Yuxi Plateau. From January to August this year, the city held 243 events of various types and undertook 100 sports team trainings. The number of participants in events and trainings was 497,000, driving consumption and investment in sports and related industries to about 380 million yuan.

In order to further promote the integrated development of culture, sports and tourism and truly turn event traffic into consumption increase, the Yuxi Municipal Education and Sports Bureau actively promotes the development of the event economy and, in conjunction with the schedule of the Chinese League One, has successively organized the “Future Stars” Youth Football Invitational Tournament, “2024 Yunnan Yunnan Yunnan A total of more than 5,000 people participated in football competitions such as the Kunming Club Cup”, setting off a national football craze.

Actively promote free or low-cost opening services in sports venues to create a strong atmosphere for national fitness. A total of 15 public sports venues in the city are included in the list of free or low-cost openings, providing citizens with a variety of fitness options. At the same time, a total of 122 on-campus sports venues and facilities in 39 primary and secondary schools in the city are open to the public to alleviate the contradiction between the people’s growing demand for sports and fitness and the insufficient supply of sports venue resources. From January to July 2024, a total of 3.772 million people were received.

Make every effort to promote the construction of sports parks. Up to now, the city has built sports parks such as Yuxi Hongta Sports Center, Skateboard Park, and Chengjiang Competitive Sports Park. The construction of these sports parks not only provides citizens with important places for skateboarding, basketball, football and other sports and leisure activities, but also promotes the popularization of national fitness. At the same time, 15 outdoor camps including Fangsheng Automobile and Motorcycle Cross-country Sports Camp, Yuxi Plateau Sports Center Go-Kart Camp, and Xinping Mopanshan Outdoor Sports Camp also provide consumers with karting, automobile and motorcycle, adventure, hiking, sailing, diving, and paragliding. and other rich and diverse special consumption experiences.

Gathering momentum to promote deep integration

As one of the sports bases in China that can hold the most complete categories of events and has the latest facilities, the Yuxi Plateau Sports Center in Yunnan relies on “ten venues and one base for one game” and supporting projects such as athlete apartments and Xiangwang Hotel to create a comprehensive sports base. It is a plateau characteristic sports industry project that integrates , mass, outdoor sports events, plateau training, study tours, culture and entertainment, etc. From January to August 2024, a total of 39 sub-plateau training teams with 30,637 people were received, including 5 national teams. As of August this year, the center has hosted a total of 86 national-level professional events, mass sports events and activities, with a total of 2.375 million participants.

In addition to Yunnan Yuxi Plateau Sports Center, our city also has Yuxi Plateau Football Training Base, Yuanjiang Low Altitude Training Base, Fuxian Lake Sailing Base and other sports bases. The complete venues and bases provide strong support for Yuxi to create high-quality events with regional characteristics and transform event traffic into increased consumption, allowing Yuxi’s cultural, sports and tourism industry to show new development vitality and potential. However, an unavoidable reality is that in the process of promoting the integrated development of culture, sports and tourism, the city still faces insufficient integration and utilization of resources, lack of professional planning and operations, insufficient development of tourism products, insufficient “sports+” industrial forms, and insufficient ability to retain people in events. , stimulating consumption capacity that cannot meet expectations and other issues.

How to unlock the “traffic code” that continues to “exit the circle” and promote the “integration” of cultural and sports tourism to create large traffic and “combine” to create new value?

“In the next step, we will follow the work requirements of the Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government, deeply explore Yuxi’s natural resources and characteristic cultural resources, and focus on promoting the integration of resources as the basis, so that dispersed forces can form aggregated development; the introduction of events and activities will be the focus, so that the explosion From point-to-point traffic to normal traffic development; focusing on enriching consumption scene formats, turning sports ‘traffic’ into cultural tourism ‘retention’; promoting the integrated development of culture, sports and tourism in the city through sports traction, cultural empowerment and tourism.” Wang Liping said.

The tourism industry is highly relevant and has strong driving force, involving various consumption scenarios such as food, accommodation, travel, shopping and entertainment. However, why has it been difficult to improve the level of tourism-related consumption?

Liang Yuhao, Party Secretary and Director of the Yuxi Culture and Tourism Bureau, said: “In the next step, Yuxi will use the football event economy as a breakthrough point to continue to integrate resources, gather strength, enrich business formats, and constantly improve the supporting service guarantee system and product format system. Through the brand We will continue to build Yuxi’s ‘sports + tourism’ brand through specialized building, precise marketing, systematic linkage, and project-based construction.” Specifically, we need to take “travel with the events and enjoy Yuxi’s leisure time” as the brand positioning and continue marketing. Yuxi sports tourism hot topics, create explosive content, and continue to expand the popularity and reputation of Yuxi sports tourism brand. Seize the traffic of each event, accurately segment tourists, continue to launch a series of leisure, experience, and vacation strategies, and constantly unlock new ways to play, new feelings, and new experiences in Yuxi; use football events as a breakthrough point to create diversified consumption scenarios , provide a rich and diverse consumption options, and actively explore new models and new mechanisms for brand linkage and benefit sharing between sports event operating entities and consumer format market entities. Focus on developing integrated business formats such as “National Fitness + Tourism”, “Sports Events + Tourism” and “Outdoor Sports + Tourism”, and continue to build a “Sports + Tourism” product system.

“The Yuxi Municipal Education and Sports Bureau will further strengthen the organizational construction of sports societies, guide the Municipal Football Association and other sports societies to carry out good events, and promote the in-depth integration and coordinated development of national fitness and competitive sports. Do a good job in the home field of the Chinese League One and fully support Yunnan Yuxi The Kunming team is aiming for the top spot. Focusing on the golden period of summer vacation, we have intensively planned sports and tourism events. From July to September, we organized more than 40 sports events of various types. At the same time, we relied on the Provincial Games stadium cluster to link up 9 counties (cities). , district) sports venues and outdoor sports training camps, and continue to build the ‘plateau training resort’ brand,” said the relevant person in charge of the Yuxi Municipal Education and Sports Bureau.

On October 5, the 2024 Yuxi Marathon will kick off. Preparations for various events are currently underway in an orderly manner, and “running expert” Mr. Xiong is full of expectations for it. Since 2015, Mr. Xiong has participated in more than 20 marathons and half-marathons inside and outside the province. In recent years, he has run more than 2,000 kilometers each year. “The most impressive thing is the Dujiangyan Marathon. You can enjoy the beautiful scenery of Dujiangyan and Qingcheng Mountain along the way. The Xi’an Marathon is also good. It starts from Yongning Gate and runs past the Bell Tower to appreciate the beauty of the ancient city of Xi’an. The Yunnan Yukun team’s game heated up the football market. It has also created a good atmosphere for the integration of culture, sports and tourism. We hope that there will be more specialty products with Yuxi elements on the marathon track so that more runners can experience the beauty of Yuxi,” said Mr. Xiong. (Reporter Li Wenwen)