New tours take film fans to National Day movie locations
Updated 19:33, 14-Oct-2019
CGTN's Global Business

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Three major Chinese movies - "My People, My Country", "The Climbers" and "The Captain" - were screened during the recent National Day holiday to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

The three movies have not only been winning at the box office but also boosted the tourism sector, as many of locations from these movies are becoming increasingly popular spots to visit.

The Palace of Ming and Qing Dynasties at China's Hengdian World studios was still crowded after the National Day Holiday. Many visitors came to see the same scale model of the Forbidden City because they watched the movie "My People, My Country", and were touched by the scenes filmed there.

That story is about a Chinese engineer who raced against time to perfect an automatic flag-raising mechanism before the founding ceremony of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949. Tourists can take pictures with and even play with the props used in the movie.

Audiences hold the fag of China during the movie My People, My Country in CinemaxX, Berlin, Germany, October 3, 2019. /VCG Photo

Audiences hold the fag of China during the movie My People, My Country in CinemaxX, Berlin, Germany, October 3, 2019. /VCG Photo

One tourist at Hengdian World Studios said "everything looks exactly like what it was in the flag-raising story, it's like I'm in the movie. Very nice!"

The Palace of Ming and Qing Dynasties alone recorded 200,000 visits during the National Day Holiday, and collected about 20 million yuan (roughly 2.8 million U.S. dollars) in revenue.

Patriotic tours in general have become increasingly popular in recent months. Hotel bookings on Alibaba's travel arm Fliggy jumped more than three fold in such historic cities as Yan'an, Ji'an and Chongqing during the first three days of the National Day Holiday.

A poster of The Captain in Grand Cinema, Shanghai, China. /VCG Photo

A poster of The Captain in Grand Cinema, Shanghai, China. /VCG Photo

The sentiment also spread into consumption. National Flag-related products sold 40 times more in September on China's leading e-commerce platform JD.com. Other decorations like lanterns and banners have also become popular. Meanwhile, "Made-in-China" is more of a key word in product descriptions.

Liu Hui, director of the JD Big Data Research Institute, said "young consumers now like to leave comments online that say, "We love made-in-China" or "Let's support made-in-China". As a matter of fact, Chinese brands are doing much better in terms of design, quality and culture. Young people are feeling confident spending money on made-in-China. They are willing to say that pride out loud."

Data from JD.com showed that Chinese people aged 26 to 45 was the number one buying power during the National Day online shopping frenzy, contributing 80 percent to total consumption.