From every morning when the gate is opened, the tourists rush into the park, to the dreamy interaction with each character; From the immersive adventure of the Jurassic world to the warm and healing mystery thief, the father, the little yellow man, who has fallen out of control; From waving Harry Potter’s wand in front of the window to becoming an explorer interacting with the “prehistoric dinosaur”… Beijing Universal Resort has woven a fairy tale world for friends and small to awaken memories and release themselves since its opening one year ago.
In September 2021, after the opening of the Universal Resort in Beijing, it quickly became a “popular online punch card”. One year later, will the Beijing Universal Resort become a new landmark in Beijing’s culture and tourism industry? Can it meet the leisure and holiday needs of tourists? What experiences and thoughts have been brought to China’s theme park industry?
More “Chinese flavor”
On the eve of the Mid Autumn Festival, Ms. Zhou received the ticket gift certificate of Universal Studios Beijing that her sister bought for her. If she did not return home for the festival, she went to “punch in” before the Mid Autumn Festival. “There are many kinds of theme designs for gift vouchers, such as’ flying over Qianshan just to reunite with you ‘,’ gathering in the park to reunite ‘, and so on. I felt full of ceremony and happiness after playing in the past, which also made me gain a new way to enjoy the moon,” Ms. Zhou said.
In Ms. Zhou’s view, although it is a theme park with international elements, Beijing Universal Resort is becoming more and more “Chinese”.
In fact, Beijing Universal Resort has not missed every traditional Chinese festival. For example, during the Spring Festival this year, Universal Beijing Resort launched the first seasonal theme activity of “Universal China Year”. In the “Global Dragon and Tiger New Year Show”, the highlight of the event, the characters such as “Kung Fu Panda Po” and “Fierce Jiaohu” changed into specially designed Chinese New Year clothes to interact with tourists. The traditional Chinese palace lantern shaped handcart floats, the red envelopes of the Chinese New Year, and the Chinese New Year wishing trees hung with wishing cards create a strong “New Year flavor” for visitors to the park.
In addition to traditional Chinese festivals, Beijing Universal Resort has been exploring more ways to tell Chinese stories. For example, we have cooperated with Tencent’s “Glory of the King” IP for cross-border cooperation, launched the theme event of the Glory of the King and Heroes pageant, and vividly demonstrated the popular culture of young people in the form of theme parks.
“It’s just like a large-scale ‘game login’ scene. The details of interaction between Yuan Fang and Di Renjie are very interesting, even their expressions are highly restored, and the characters are very cute.” Ms. Lu, a senior roaming card user, can’t wait to punch in the first weekend after she was launched on the “King Glory” IP.
Ms. Lu mentioned the King Glory and Heroes Parade in the theme activity. Beijing Universal Resort has dug into the glory of the king, a popular cultural element among young people, and created a performance integrated into the parade, so that cross-border co-branding is not just a stiff cosplay display.
“We chose the ‘Chang’an region’ in the glory of the king as the background of the story, and created the characters of Li Bai, Wu Zetian, Di Renjie and so on, hoping to present a wonderful mobile stage play for the audience. All the actions of the heroes in the performance can be found in the ‘glory of the king’ in the corresponding action and move design. When watching the parade, tourists seem to be incarnated as residents of Chang’an City, and experience the dream of the game world and the real world Magic linkage. ” Wang Yikai, entertainment art director of Universal Beijing Resort.
Many operators said that in the past year, Universal Beijing Resort has been trying to explore the local market. The integration of young people’s trendy cultural elements and the immersive experience of Universal Beijing Resort has brought fresh feelings and new ways for tourists.
Gu Huimin, a professor of the School of Tourism Science of the Beijing Second Foreign Languages University, said that as an international cultural theme park, the integration and interaction of the international cultural elements of the Beijing Universal Resort and the local cultural elements of China can better meet the higher demand of tourists for spiritual culture.
More interesting
“Megatron’s mouth is broken, but every action is taking pictures with tourists.” “His site is a place in the resort that is very worthy of interaction.” “Megatron’s mouth is too soft.” “Megatron’s interaction with tourists has been popular for several times in the past year.
Today, drinking a cup of butter beer, wearing a Hogwarts wizard robe, and taking a photo with Megatron seem to have become the standard configuration of punch card Beijing Universal Resort. These are precisely the “hot products” meticulously created by Universal Beijing Resort, attracting many tourists to the park to punch in, experience and share. Beijing Universal Resort has gradually become a holiday destination for tourists to celebrate the shining moment and share happiness.
Since the opening of the Beijing Universal Resort, more than 85000 tourists have celebrated their birthdays in the park. Many couples prefer to propose at the Universal Resort in Beijing, and witness romantic moments with their favorite movie characters.
Kang Zhaoning, executive vice president and general manager of Universal Beijing Resort, said: “In the past year, Universal Beijing Resort and thousands of tourists have jointly created countless exciting memories, and tourists have spent many shining moments here, which we are very proud of.”
Of course, behind the happy experience of tourists, it is also inseparable from the hard work of every employee in Beijing Universal Resort. Over the past year, they have done their best to create an atmosphere of high interest and strong immersion experience for tourists.
“My colleagues and I are very willing to create happiness for tourists, just like heroes in movies, and play their roles well.” Li Yan, a store employee at Universal Studios, a Hollywood scenic spot, introduced that when tourists enter different stores in the resort, they can hear different greetings from the store staff. For example, the way to say hello to the Transformers Base is “welcome the return of agents”; In the Little Yellow Man Paradise, “Bello Bello” is the “Little Yellow Man Language” used to greet; In the magic world, it is more exquisite, and the sense of ceremony is particularly important. If the tourists wear the costumes of the college, the staff will recognize the college where the wizard is located and welcome them, such as “Hello, the wizard of Gryffindor.” The purpose of all this is to bring the guests into the theme scene as much as possible.
Ran Qirami, the director of landscape activities at Universal Beijing Resort, said that both the selection of gardening materials and the techniques of landscape construction must be based on the principle and boundary of highly restored experience.
“We need to ensure that the equipment in the park is in good condition and maintain its reliability and stability. Universal Beijing Resort is not only a dream place for tourists, but also a dream paradise for our employees,” said Dong Gang, electrical manager of Universal Beijing Resort.
Better understanding of tourists
Influenced by the epidemic, how to optimize the experience and attract tourists to enter the park repeatedly is also a very important test for Beijing Universal Resort in the market environment where the customer base is mainly local tourists.
In the past year, 90% of the respondents expressed “very satisfied” and “satisfied” with the experience of the resort, and 90% of the respondents said they hoped to visit the Universal Beijing Resort again; Tourists with “winter and spring roaming cards” and “summer and autumn roaming cards” have visited the park more than 17 times on average in the past 10 months.
In order to cope with the adverse effects of winter weather conditions in the north, Universal Beijing Resort makes full use of the natural combination of film theme scenes and northern climate to create unique winter theme park experience, and introduces seasonal limited experience such as winter holidays and Universal China Year. Among them, “the first snow in Hogwarts” last winter became a classic combination of global theme landscape and Beijing climate. Many “fans” who saw this scene sighed on social media, “finally understand why Universal Studios should be built in Beijing.”
In terms of product innovation, Zhang Zuqun, associate professor of the Department of Cultural Heritage of the School of Design and Art of Beijing University of Technology, suggested that Universal Beijing Resort could launch a combination package with multiple contents such as “ticket+express pass+hotel+catering”, focusing on the package matching and subsequent supply guarantee of parent-child families, innovating the form of entertainment projects, paying attention to the cultural connotation and social benefits of IP, and creating distinctive Secondary consumer goods with bright spots.
The expert’s suggestion coincides with the market strategy of Universal Beijing Resort. In the past year, Universal Beijing Resort has launched Universal Studios Winter Spring Roaming Card, Summer Autumn Roaming Card, 1.5 day ticket, non designated day double half day ticket, and non designated day triple ticket for celebrating the first anniversary to better meet the personalized needs of different tourists.
In August this year, on the occasion of the release of the movie “Little Yellow Man with Big Eyes: The Story of the Thief’s Father”, Universal Beijing Resort launched the “Immersive Little Yellow Man Theme Tour”, which extended the splendor of the big screen to all aspects of food, accommodation, play, entertainment and shopping. Universal Studios Hotel launched a new little yellow man theme room to create a unique experience of staying with a series of film theme elements, Guests can also interact with Xiaohuangren and other movie characters in the series of “Father of the Thief” while enjoying breakfast. The theme experience extends from the hotel to the theme scenic spot. The rich ride and entertainment experience of the Little Yellow Man Park in the Beijing Universal Resort allows tourists to “be a Little Yellow Man” in the theme park, and all kinds of catering and theme goods in the Little Yellow Man Park have also been updated. On August 16, the Chinese premiere of the movie “Little Yellow Man with Big Eyes: The Prequel of the Father of the Thief” was also held in Beijing Universal Resort.
The film “Jurassic World 3” was released this summer. The Universal Studios in Beijing “staged” five real sized dinosaurs “escaping” in the Hollywood scenic area, extending the thrilling stories in the film to the park. At the same time, Universal Beijing Resort also launched the “Jurassic World Holiday Package”, which includes tickets to the Universal Studios theme park, Universal Express, Norkin Resort’s executive room accommodation experience and carefully prepared Jurassic themed welcome package, to provide tourists with a “one-stop” holiday experience.
In the first year of its opening, it launched innovative products closely linked and deeply integrated with the film and cultural industry, reflecting the accurate grasp of the changes in tourist demand and its unique advantages of Universal Beijing Resort. “The film culture IP itself has a profound connotation. During its release, the theme activities and experience activities will be held and applied to the tourism scenes of the theme park, which will enable tourists to have a better immersive experience, obtain a greater sense of satisfaction, help improve the attraction of the theme park, and guide tourists to repeat consumption.” said Jiang Yiyi, vice president of the School of Sports Leisure and Tourism of Beijing Sport University.
The “theme deep vacation” of Beijing Universal Resort was selected as the “2022 tourism and holiday innovation case” selected by the China Tourism Research Institute. Over the past year, Beijing Universal Resort has launched more than 3400 themed products, with at least one new product every day.
“It is true that continuous innovation can attract more customers’ attention. Any product has a life cycle. Resort products need to be constantly changing and always keep a high degree of consistency with tourists’ needs and maintain tourists’ stickiness. Whether it is to regularly update existing facilities and projects in the park, introduce new technology, new facilities, or new IP image, it can maintain lasting attraction for tourists. In addition, you can try theme activities The innovation of festival activities and cultural activities. The innovation of ‘soft’ activities is an easy to operate update way for theme parks, and also an important direction to maintain lasting attraction. ” Wu Liyun, professor of the Chinese Culture and Tourism Industry Research Institute of the Beijing Second Foreign Languages Institute, said.
Spillover effect gradually appears
At the beginning of its opening, Universal Beijing Resort has received high attention from the market, such as whether the resort can adapt to the Chinese market, how to cope with the challenges of high-latitude winter, and whether it can produce good spillover effects. Now, a year has passed, Beijing Universal Resort has given the answer.
As one of the key projects for the development of cultural tourism industry in the sub-center of Beijing, the spillover effect of Beijing Universal Resort is gradually emerging. Beijing Universal Resort has driven the development of surrounding supporting industries. In 2021, the income of cultural, sports and entertainment industries above designated size in Tongzhou District will increase by 367.4% year-on-year, and the income of accommodation industry will increase by 122.6%. In the first quarter of 2022, the income of cultural and sports entertainment industry increased by 532.7% year-on-year.
In Gu Huimin’s view, the spillover effect of Beijing Universal Resort is gradually emerging, which is of positive significance for enriching the product supply of Beijing cultural tourism market, promoting the transformation of Beijing culture and tourism from sightseeing to in-depth experience, and improving Beijing tourism image. “The strong spillover effect is conducive to the improvement of the cultural and tourism industry chain in Beijing, while optimizing the spatial layout of the cultural and tourism industry.”
Jiang Yiyi also said that in terms of regional linkage, Beijing Universal Resort has driven the overall improvement of the cultural and leisure resort industry in eastern Beijing through the creation of industrial clusters, reflecting its responsibility and mission of development spillover.
The industry also gave suggestions on how to better play to the spillover effect of Universal Beijing Resort.
Wu Liyun mentioned that the strong gathering capacity of Beijing Universal Resort has laid a solid foundation for the government to further optimize the complementary business forms around it. For example, the layout of large duty-free stores, shopping villages, characteristic accommodation, catering, etc. can enrich and improve the regional product composition with the Beijing Universal Resort as the passenger flow center, and stimulate the consumption demand of tourists. In addition, it is also necessary to do a good job in connecting the lines of the surrounding products, such as the transportation, roads, publicity and guidance of the surrounding products and the tourist lines, so as to undertake the overflow crowd of Beijing Universal Resort to a greater extent.
It has been suggested that the “spillover effect” of the Beijing Universal Resort can be enlarged by giving full play to the functions of the aggregation, radiation, integration and amplification of the relevant life service platforms, activating the surrounding “ring stores” such as catering, accommodation and leisure, and thus stimulating the vitality of the broader and broader real economy.
“Under the normalization of epidemic prevention and control, tourists’ demand for happiness and high-quality park experience is still strong. As long as we continue to work hard in product experience, innovative technology, innovative operation ideas, innovative marketing promotion and other aspects, Beijing Universal Resort will be able to look forward to the future,” said a researcher in the field of theme parks.