According to a report released by the China Performing Arts Association, the "2025 Annual Report on China's Tourism Performance Market" shows that in 2025, large and medium-sized tourism performance projects nationwide staged 198,700 shows, a year-on-year increase of 4.95%; ticket revenue reached 17.442 billion yuan, up 6.43% year-on-year; and audience numbers reached 87.9897 million, a year-on-year increase of 3.01%.
China's tourism performance industry has entered a period of steady development, shifting from scale expansion to quality improvement and efficiency enhancement. The report was released at the 2026 Cultural Tourism Integration and High-Quality Development of Tourism Performance Conference held in Linyi, Shandong.
Pan Yan, vice president and secretary-general of the China Performing Arts Association, said at the conference that travel consumption momentum, rising artistic aesthetics, demand for emotional value, and the strengthening of immersive experiences on the supply side are driving tourism performance projects to continuously optimize and upgrade, further highlighting the resilience of market development.
The report shows that tourism performance projects currently present an overall pattern of "strong east, flourishing west, and north-south linkage." In eastern regions such as the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Bohai Rim, tourism performance projects are numerous, high in quality, and complete in business formats; western regions rely on unique natural and cultural resources to continue deepening their work in the tourism performance sector. The "north-south linkage" is reflected in the complementary advantages of the south and north, with many northern regions creating performances based on historical and cultural resources, while many southern regions develop immersive experience projects by leveraging natural scenery.
The report points out that in terms of business formats, China's tourism performance industry has formed a complete structure in which segmented fields including live-action performances, theater performances, theme park performances, and emerging specialty performances advance together. In terms of audience composition and consumption characteristics, the tourism performance market shows a profile of "a stable base customer group, the rise of the silver-haired demographic, and young people concentrating on innovative projects," as well as consumption features of "prominent experience premiums, a growing trend toward independent travel, and the extension of ticket stub economy."
In 2025, the average spending per customer for tourism performance projects reached 298.8 yuan, marking that tourism performance is no longer positioned as a "free add-on to scenic spots," and that tourists are willing to pay for high-quality cultural content. "In 2025, various tourism performance projects deeply integrated immersive experience elements according to their own positioning. In the future, the deep integration of high-quality experiences and diverse business formats will become an important growth engine for the cultural tourism consumption market," Pan Yan said.