Photo taken on May 27, 2019 shows a Turkish restaurant at the Yong Ping Lane in Xuhui District of east China's Shanghai. (Xinhua/Fang Zhe)
"SLEEPLESS" CITIES
Nighttime economy is booming in many Chinese cities, particularly in the major ones where a large number of young people work overtime or stay up late.
According to a report issued by Meituan Dianping, a popular online O2O platform, China's nighttime dining consumption went up by 47 percent in 2018, higher than the daytime growth, with Beijing and Shanghai ranking the top two in nighttime dinning consumption. The report also shows that most of the consumers are in their twenties and thirties.
Many cities across China have also rolled out plans to stimulate the nighttime economy to drive growth amid downward pressure on the broader economy.
Chongqing, for example, is working to create more nightlife attractions, including recruiting street artists from around the world to a major nightlife center.
Beijing announced last month its plan to build and upgrade 10 food streets into "midnight canteens" for night owls in the next three years. According to its government work report earlier this year, Beijing will encourage malls, supermarkets and convenience stores to stay open later.
DIVERSIFYING NIGHTLIFE
The nightlife boom came after increasingly rich Chinese citizens increased their spending on leisure.
Zou Tongqian, deputy director of the expert committee of the World Tourism Cities Federation, said the nighttime economy can help extend business hours, boost employment and consumption and become a new bright spot for economic growth.
The nighttime economy in Chinese cities, now primarily related to dining and shopping, should further optimize the supply structure as the urbanites are upgrading their spending from merchandise to services, said Zhao Ping, a researcher with the Academy of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.
Chen Lifen, an official with the Ministry of Commerce, said cities should speed up the nurturing of booming service sectors, including film, entertainment, tourism, health care and sports, for more nightlife scenes.
"Nighttime economy has become an important part of the urban economy," said Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Academy. "It can meet the material and cultural consumption upgrading of urban residents and also is a major channel for tourists to have a taste of local culture and life," said Dai.
