China's tourism performance industry sees steady growth in 2025

China's tourism performance industry maintained steady growth in 2025, with box office revenue reaching 17.44 billion yuan (about 2.58 billion U.S. dollars), up 6.43 percent from 2024.

The China Association of Performing Arts (CAPA) unveiled the figures Monday in an annual report on the tourism performance industry during an industry conference in Linyi, east China's Shandong Province.

Large and medium-sized tourism performance projects across China staged 198,700 shows last year, up 4.95 percent year on year, while attendance totaled 87.99 million, up 3.01 percent, according to the report.

The average spending per visitor on tourism performances reached 298.8 yuan, indicating that tourism performances are no longer merely an "add-on" to scenic attractions, with visitors willing to pay for high-quality cultural content, the report said.

In terms of formats, China's tourism performance industry has developed a comprehensive structure in which live outdoor performances, theater productions, theme park shows and emerging featured performances are advancing in tandem, according to the report.

Tourism performance projects are continuously being upgraded, driven by travel consumption, rising artistic appreciation, growing demand for emotional value and enhanced immersive experiences on the supply side, which further demonstrates the resilience of the market, said Pan Yan, vice president and secretary-general of the CAPA.

"Looking ahead, the deep integration of high-quality experiences with diverse tourism and cultural formats will become a major driver of growth in the cultural and tourism consumption market," Pan said.

China has attached great importance to the booming tourism performance industry in both national and industrial development blueprints. The country's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) unveiled in March this year called for fostering distinctive themed travel routes and high-quality tourism performance projects.

The 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) for cultural and tourism development released earlier this month urged cultivating high-quality tourism performance projects by "creating and staging a number of high-quality tourism performances that reflect the characteristics of the times and meet market demand, enhancing their cultural content, and supporting the upgrading of tourism performance equipment."