Zhejiang people, no nightlife？

Chao News Client Reporter Quan Linmin

As soon as summer arrives, the economy will always pop out at night to brush a sense of existence several times.

But in the office, chung Jin Jun heard colleagues from other provinces question more than once:

"Zhejiang people don’t you have nightlife? How come at ten o’clock, the street is deserted and there are few cars? "

Whenever this time, Yong Jinjun always refutes a few words for his hometown. But unfortunately, Yong Jinjun will always be "what are the interesting and delicious places?" The question was stumped and then lost in thought.

Is there really no nightlife in Zhejiang?

It is certain that Zhejiang people have nightlife, whether it is observation at the point or intuitive presentation of data.

On the first day of the ambush, Yong Jin Jun went to the Wulin night market in Hangzhou. The temperature at night is still very high, but there are no fewer people visiting the night market.

At about 8: 30, Yong Jin Jun was packed with sweat in the endless crowd. Everyone either took photos with their mobile phones or crowded in front of various booths to buy things. Popular stalls are even more crowded. For example, the squid stall that Nicholas Tse punched in is a conformity.

"After the summer, there are more people every day, and the daily sales have tripled or quadrupled compared with before." Mr. Cao, the stall owner who specializes in hand-painted masks, said.

The popularity is high. I’m afraid it’s not because there are many foreign tourists, right? But Ye Lianzhong, secretary of the Party branch of Wulin Night Market, told Yong Jin Jun that according to their estimation, 45% of the visitors to Wulin Night Market are tourists, and the rest are local residents.

What? Do you think 8: 30 is too early to be called nightlife?

Yong Jin Jun also went to the ancient town of Ke Qiao, Shaoxing, and it was already more than 9 pm when he arrived at the scenic spot. Arguably, this point was the time when everyone was ready to go home one after another. However, when Yong Jin Jun stopped, he found that the number of cars looking for vacant seats in the parking lot was comparable to the number of cars driving out, which shows that there are still many people visiting the ancient town at this point.

When I came to the core of the ancient town, around Rongguang Bridge, it was already 9: 30, and the popularity was still very strong. On the Rongguang Bridge, the river along the ancient town is either full of people or full of people.

A local told Yong Jin Jun that this is also the normal state of the ancient town, and many surrounding residents will go to the ancient town for a walk after dinner and have nothing to do.

In recent days, third-party organizations have released research reports on China’s urban night economy. According to the report, the nightlife in Zhejiang is also very active.

For example, in the Report on Night Economic Development of China Cities in 2023, Hangzhou is the first echelon (10) of the TOP100 cities with night economic prosperity, and Jiaxing, Jinhua, Ningbo and Wenzhou are the second echelon (20), and nearly half of Zhejiang cities are shortlisted.

In a word, the nightlife in Zhejiang is definitely not as cold as the outside world thinks.

Since the development is not bad, why do people always say that Zhejiang people have no nightlife?

"The development speed of Zhejiang’s night economy does not match its economic strength and residents’ consumption level." Zhao Haoxing, a professor at the School of Economics of Zhejiang Gongshang University and vice president of Zheshang Research Institute, said.

From the perspective of economic aggregate, Zhejiang’s GDP has always been among the best in the country, and its per capita disposable income ranks first in all provinces and regions in the country. However, in the night economic rankings, Zhejiang’s achievements can only be considered as above average, not top. A top student who has a flawed score in one subject will give the outside world a sense of gap.

In addition, Yang Yingjun, director of the Consumption Promotion Department of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Commerce, believes that there are not many iconic night economic scenes in Zhejiang, and there are even fewer places with national influence, which makes it impossible for foreign tourists to go to Zhejiang at night, thus becoming famous throughout the country.

There is a city that never sleeps in Datang in Xi ‘an, Shaanxi, Hongya Cave in Chongqing, and Wenhe Friends in Changsha, Hunan. But what’s in Zhejiang? You can only name the Wulin night market and the West Lake in Hangzhou at most.

But the duration of Wulin night market is limited. The stall owner puts out the stall at 5 o’clock and closes it at 11 o’clock. The market area is only about 1000 square meters, which is still the result of expansion and it is difficult to form a scale.

The West Lake is almost the same problem, and the scale of the night economic agglomeration area is not large. Unlike Wenheyou or Datang City that Never Sleeps, it has formed a relatively complete and rich night consumption scene.

Only when there is demand can there be supply. Isn’t it because there is less demand in Zhejiang? Actually, it is not.

Zhao Haoxing told Yong Jin Jun a very interesting phenomenon-there are more night economic scenes in Wenzhou than in Hangzhou. Many Wenzhou people go to Hangzhou because of the lack of night consumption atmosphere, so they go to bed earlier, and go back to Wenzhou later. It shows that their spending habits at night have always been there, but they just can’t find many places to spend at night.

In Zhao Haoxing’s view, the creation of the scene needs to go through a critical period. If at first the scene builder thinks that there are not many people in the street at night, and few people come out to play, they are more cautious or don’t invest in creating scenes, and there are fewer scenes, and fewer people are willing to come out at night. So everyone went to bed earlier and earlier, and there were fewer and fewer scenes. Zhejiang needs to break this cycle.

People sitting by the river for dinner in the ancient town of Ke Qiao.

How does the city that never sleeps come?

In recent years, the importance of night economy in stimulating consumption is becoming more and more prominent. Statistics show that 60% of consumption in China occurs at night, and the sales of large shopping malls from 18: 00 to 22: 00 every day account for more than half of the whole day.

According to the small and micro observation report released by the online merchant bank, the night economy with fast growth, high proportion, rich formats and contrarian market scale is becoming the force point of small and micro businesses in many cities-the national proportion is 68%.

Zhejiang has long been eyeing the important value of the night economy. In March 2020, Zhejiang took the lead in issuing the provincial government’s implementation opinions to boost consumption in the country, and made it clear that it was necessary to vigorously cultivate and develop the night economy.

This summer, Zhejiang’s summer consumption promotion put the main card on the "night economy". On the evening of July 7, the province’s night economic tour season was launched in Keqiao District, and cities were organized to carry out "night consumption promotion" activities from different levels.

Judging from the activity scene in Ke Qiao, the first stop of the tour season, Zhejiang is trying to enrich the night consumption scene and make up for the shortcomings of the night economy.

It is reported that in addition to all kinds of food and commodity markets that are very common in promoting consumption activities, the event site of the day also set up three major festivals: milk coffee festival, barbecue festival and music festival.

"In the past, the activities to promote consumption may have been to set up a few booths and urge people to come to buy buy to buy them, but this time we have merged into more formats, such as inviting bands to sing. This activity will also be fixed for a long time during the summer vacation, which will have a long-term support for local night consumption. " Yang Yingjun said.

Zhejiang is also making every effort to cultivate and build a night economic landmark with national influence. In 2020, Zhejiang Provincial Department of Commerce started the pilot work of provincial night economy cities, and at present, 19 model cities and 6 characteristic cities have been identified in the province.

Taking Gongshu District of Hangzhou as an example, through the construction of night economy, the economic benefits of all night punching places and related enterprises in this area have been continuously improved. The night-time pedestrian flow ratio in the Wulin business circle increased by about 24% on average, and the night-time revenue of each complex increased from 45% in 2019 to about 55% in 2022.

In the first half of this year, the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Commerce jointly issued the "Three-year Action Plan for Creating High-quality Consumption Agglomeration Areas" with five provincial departments. It is planned to build 30 provincial-level night economy model (characteristic) cities, 30 provincial-level high-quality pedestrian streets and 50 provincial-level characteristic commercial streets (districts) through three-year efforts.

The fireworks in the world touch the hearts of ordinary people the most. I hope that in the near future, Yong Jin Jun can also introduce the good places in the evening and see the other side of Zhejiang night when chatting with friends from other places.

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