As Shanghai Disney Resort is about to celebrate its 8th anniversary, the China Tourism Academy released the "2024 Shanghai Disney Resort Happy Tourism Trend Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") on June 13. The report takes the excellent practices and operational concepts of the Shanghai Disney Resort as a blueprint, based on consumer insights research over the past eight years, to interpret the new hotspots, phenomena, and trends emerging in the current tourism industry.

Dai Bin, Dean of the China Tourism Academy, stated that with the recovery of consumption, people's demand for happiness has shown a more urgent and intense trend. This has led to an accelerated release of domestic cultural tourism market consumption demand, providing new opportunities for cultural tourism projects represented by theme parks. It promotes the continuous transformation of cultural tourism demand towards high quality and diversification, further restructuring, reshaping, and upgrading the entire cultural tourism industry.

Public data shows that in 2023, the number of domestic trips reached 4.891 billion, an increase of 2.361 billion compared to the same period of the previous year, a year-on-year growth of 93.3%. The total expenditure of domestic tourists was 49.1 trillion yuan, an increase of 2.87 trillion yuan compared to the previous year, a year-on-year growth of 140.3%.

The report points out that China's tourism industry is facing a transformation from low-level needs to high-quality and diversified needs. High emotional value is becoming the traffic code for tourist destinations to stand out, bringing more relaxation to participants. The rising popularity of alternative tourism, reverse tourism, and healing tourism is a direct manifestation of these signals to the tourism market. It reflects people's yearning for a better spiritual life and is also a diverse presentation of individuality and the pursuit of self.

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Theme parks have become the vanguard in embracing the "happiness economy." Taking the Shanghai Disney Resort as a research blueprint, official data shows that as of December 20, 2023, Shanghai Disney Park received more than 13 million visitors in less than a year of 2023, setting a record for visitor traffic since its opening. Driven by Shanghai Disney Park, the Shanghai International Tourism and Resort Area, with the park as its core, also set a record for visitor traffic in 2023—the entire area, including major attractions such as the Shanghai Disney Resort, Bicester Shanghai Shopping Village, and Ecological Park, reached a total of 25.627 million visitors.

Consumer insight data from the Shanghai Disney Resort shows that in 2023, more than 40.99 million people watched live entertainment performances at the resort. Among them, the iconic daytime theme parade "Mickey's Storybook Express" at Shanghai Disney Park was watched by more than 10.21 million people in 2023. The willingness of visitors to return for another visit is as high as 85%. Annual pass holders of Shanghai Disney Park visit the park an average of 12 times a year, with an average cardholding period of more than 700 days.

Since its opening eight years ago, the Shanghai Disney Resort has continued to expand. On December 20, 2023, the world's first "Zootopia" themed area officially opened. The Walt Disney Company announced at a previous investor summit that it will invest $60 billion in the Disney experience segment over the next ten years for the expansion of parks and the development of cruise business, which is equivalent to doubling the total investment of the past decade.

Han Jinfang, the head of data analysis at the Data Analysis Institute of the China Tourism Academy, said that looking at the source structure of visitors, in 2023, the composition of visitors to Shanghai Disney without children and with children was evenly divided. Family visitors over 30 years old without children accounted for about 30% of the visitors to Shanghai Disney Park. The enthusiasm and travel needs of the silver-haired group have become a new force in cultural tourism. Compared with 2019 before the epidemic, the number of visitors with one-day and two-day tickets for the elderly at Shanghai Disney Park in 2023 increased by about 75%.

Dai Bin, combining the analysis of the report, believes that tourism is no longer just a single leisure method centered on "eating, living, traveling, touring, shopping, and entertainment." Emotional value has gradually become an important driving force and leading factor for consumers to travel and play, and it has an impact on consumer psychology, decision-making, and behavior from various aspects. The accelerated release of domestic cultural tourism market consumption demand has provided new opportunities for cultural tourism projects represented by theme parks, promoting the continuous transformation of cultural tourism demand towards high quality and diversification, and further restructuring, reshaping, and upgrading the cultural tourism industry.