The creation of urban cultural IP from the booming ice and snow tourism in Harbin

This city in northeast China has successfully developed ice and snow tourism into an important part of its city cultural IP by virtue of its unique ice and snow resources and rich cultural connotations. This article will start with the phenomenon of the popularity of Harbin's ice and snow tourism, explore the significance and impact of the creation of urban cultural IP, and provide reference and reference for other cities to create their own unique cultural IP.

"It's not that I can't afford to go to Northern Europe, it's just that the Ice City is more cost-effective." At the beginning of the Year of the Dragon, Harbin has been on the hot search and popular on the Internet. Tourists from all over the world have flocked to the Ice City to experience the unique ice and snow journey. Harbin, known as the "Ice City Summer Capital", has long been deeply cultivating ice and snow tourism culture, focusing on building ice and snow tourism IP and promoting ice and snow tourism IP to "break through the circle". At present, my country's urban operation and development has entered the era of cultural IP. How to establish a clear and unique positioning for the city and explore and create urban cultural IP based on this is a realistic issue that many large and medium-sized cities are currently exploring.

Urban cultural IP is about the creativity of the city’s characteristic culture, and in the process of realizing creativity, the integration and transformation of various cultural resources create a symbolic and personalized specific image. It is a personalized and transferable cultural consumer product, with characteristics such as affinity, attraction, acceptance, cohesion and communication. Its main function is to increase the recognition and recognition of urban culture in a short period of time, and to form the city’s cultural character and image in the long term, thereby helping to enable the high-quality development of the city’s economy and society.

Urban culture is not only the soul of urban evolution, but also the foundation of urban sustainable development. At present, my country's urban operation and development has entered the era of cultural IP. How to establish a clear and distinctive positioning for the city and explore and create urban cultural IP based on this is a realistic issue that many large and medium-sized cities are currently exploring.

01

“It’s not that I can’t afford to go to Northern Europe, it’s just that the Ice City is more cost-effective.”

At the beginning of the Year of the Dragon, Harbin has been on the hot search list many times and has become popular on the Internet. Tourists from all over the world have flocked to the Ice City to experience the unique ice and snow journey. Harbin, known as the "Ice City Summer Capital", has long been deeply cultivating ice and snow tourism culture, focusing on building ice and snow tourism IP and promoting ice and snow tourism IP to "break through the circle".

Since December 2023, tourists from all over the country, especially the south, have flocked to Harbin to enjoy the ice and snow. As of December 20, the passenger throughput of Harbin Taiping International Airport in 2023 exceeded 20 million, making it the first airport in Northeast China with a passenger flow exceeding 20 million this year. 65-70% of the passengers are tourists. Statistics from a well-known domestic travel platform show that Harbin’s tourism popularity has soared by 300% month-on-month, and Harbin has jumped into the top ten of the national popular tourist destinations list.

In the three days before the New Year's Day holiday in 2024, Harbin received 3.05 million tourists and the total tourism revenue reached nearly 5.93 billion yuan, both of which reached historical peaks, making it the "top stream" domestic winter travel destination. "Cold resources" in Harbin have evolved into "hot economy", and ice and snow in Harbin have gathered into "gold and silver mountains".

The popularity of Harbin's ice and snow cultural tourism IP is of course closely related to the governments at all levels carefully creating tourism project products, pursuing cultural and tourism characteristics, paying attention to tourists' favorability, and the low prices and affordable consumption of ice and snow tourism products. However, based on the author's on-site observations and field analysis, the more critical, more important and fundamental reasons lie in the richness of cultural and tourism products, the ability to accommodate "huge wealth" and the humanization of the tourism consumption environment.

02

Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, with the sustained and rapid development of my country's economy, the per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents has continued to increase, the leisure time of members of society has gradually increased, and the demand for tourism consumption has shown a trend of rapid transformation and upgrading.

Experience in developed countries shows that when a country's per capita GDP is $3,000-5,000, it is in the initial stage of leisure consumption; and when the per capita GDP exceeds $8,000, it will enter the era of leisure consumption. According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2016, my country's per capita GDP reached $8,120, exceeding $8,000, calculated in current US dollars. This fully demonstrates that my country's tourism consumption demand is moving from sightseeing tourism to the era of leisure tourism.

The main feature of leisure tourism is that people's tourism demand for a better life has shifted from "whether or not" to "how good", especially with the continuous expansion of the domestic tourism market and the changes in tourism consumer demand, the diversified, personalized and quality consumption characteristics of tourists' travel are becoming increasingly obvious. In the era of leisure tourism, tourists not only pay attention to traditional sightseeing tourism projects, but also care about new tourism products such as leisure and vacation, cultural experience, adventure and excitement; not only pay attention to in-depth tours of scenic spots and landscapes, but also put forward higher requirements for related consumption projects such as accommodation, catering, transportation, shopping, entertainment, and culture.

Harbin assesses the situation and responds to the will of heaven and the people, proactively assesses the impact of leisure tourism on ice and snow tourism, seizes the opportunity of the spread of the "Winter Olympics effect", firmly grasps the opportunity of the opening of the "Asian Winter Games", and uses the advantages of the rich and profound local ice and snow culture to plan and design and launch a "combination punch" of ice and snow tourism in a timely manner, and launches a series of creative Ice and Snow World, Sun Island Snow Expo, Yabuli Ski Resort, Pingshan Shenlu Snow Resort, Yuquan Hunting Ground and other highly well-known ice and snow tourism flagship brands, and creates supporting immersive Central Avenue, Chinese Baroque Historical and Cultural Block, Sophia Cathedral, Volga Manor, Polar Park Square, Music Park Promenade and other Internet celebrity check-in spots.

In short, Harbin presents domestic and foreign tourists with diverse, multi-dimensional, well-planned, well-structured and sound ice and snow tourism projects. On the one hand, it realizes the common desire of the "little golden beans" in the south to enjoy ice and snow, and on the other hand, it meets the personalized needs of tourists from all over the world to fully experience the style and customs of the "Little Paris of the East". Harbin shows the unique charm of ice and snow tourism to foreign tourists with its bright ice and snow tourism business cards, and the beautiful ice city has become a desirable "poetry and distant place".

03

In the Internet age where the Internet is everywhere, popular topics mean attention, and attention is a kind of fashion economy. At present, with the rapid development of global tourism, many large and medium-sized cities have gone beyond the traditional model of tourists "visiting here" after careful consideration. The city that can create memes and trigger topics on social media can trigger the impulse and enthusiasm of a large number of tourists to "go on a whim", and even make a city (or region) that was originally unknown in the tourism industry have huge traffic and attraction in fission-level mass communication. For example, Zibo, Shandong, which was triggered by "barbecue", and Taipan Township, Qiandongnan Prefecture, Guizhou Province, which was popular with "Village BA", are both topical enough.

Harbin has used the Internet platform to create a city cultural IP and hold various ice and snow tourism promotion activities to convey the unique cultural charm of the Ice City to more consumers across the country. For example, hot topics such as "Southern Little Potatoes", "Potato Princess" and "Your Highness Sugar Orange" have become popular and attracted widespread attention online and offline. Harbin's popularity has continued to rise. After continuous fermentation on multiple platforms, the search volume for topics such as "Harbin, you make me feel strange" and "What do southern tourists eat in Harbin" has exceeded 10 million. The content related to the "Southern Little Potatoes" hot topic has been played more than 2 billion times on a short video platform. Harbin's ice and snow cultural tourism IP and urban cultural image have been constantly refreshed by various service details of courtesy to guests on the Internet, and new words such as "Pleasant City Style" and "Southern Little Golden Beans" have emerged frequently.

At the same time, some nationally famous hosts with official backgrounds, many big Vs on major short video platforms, and many film and television celebrities took the initiative to endorse and passionately promote Harbin, allowing tourists to deeply understand Harbin and its ice and snow culture from multiple dimensions. In addition, the airport stewardess danced to welcome guests, the shopping mall held a symphony performance, the Oroqen compatriots brought reindeer to the Central Street, and the frozen pears, frozen persimmons and other fruits were cut and served to tourists by the restaurant. These elegant cultures and local homestays appeared on major platforms and immediately became hot searches once they were released, not only making the locals feel unfamiliar, but also letting foreign tourists feel the sincerity and enthusiasm of Harbin people. Harbin instantly became a "net celebrity city" that everyone flocked to.

Put yourself in the shoes of tourists and make them feel comfortable and respected, and at home. This is the ultimate code to accurately grasp this wave of traffic and thus speed up the process of going viral.

04

As a "happy industry" and "beautiful economy", the important competitiveness of ice and snow tourism lies in the tourism environment supported by cultural services. It can be said that the ice and snow tourism environment is like "climate", and tourists from all over the world are like "migratory birds", and they will fly to where the tourism environment is good.

At the same time, we should also realize that a city's tourism environment affects not only the tourism industry itself, but also determines the image and reputation of a city. Especially for ice and snow tourism cities, the quality of the tourism environment plays a vital role in the development of a city. In the context of modern global tourism, when tourists travel to a city, in addition to understanding and feeling the local city appearance, local customs and practices, they can also experience and recognize the city's level of civilization.

The success of Harbin's ice and snow tourism IP and its rapid popularity show the objective fact that although Harbin is cold in winter, Harbin's approach is sincere, warm and heartwarming. "Tourists first, respect guests, treat guests as friends and relatives" is not only the mobilization and call of the local governments at all levels in Harbin, but also the conscious action of relevant management departments and the general public.

From the sincerity in calming the "ticket refund" storm to the frankness of "A Letter to the People of Harbin", from major bathing centers opening 24 hours a day at low prices to symphony performances in shopping malls, from private cars picking up tourists free of charge to the opening of two-way free passages on Metro Line 2, from volunteers delivering brown sugar water to tourists in line to small vendors saying "Princess please++" in "clip sound", especially the citizens' promise of "not going to restaurants or taking baths, not driving broken cars around the streets, saying hello to tourists, and even being guides for free". This series of dedicated, attentive and heartwarming initiatives and behaviors have repeatedly raised the "temperature" of hospitality of the people of the Ice City.

This winter, Harbin's ice and snow tourism IP has become popular. It seems accidental, but it is inevitable. Behind it lies a simple and profound truth - tourists first is the iron rule and royal way that this city adheres to in developing ice and snow tourism.

05

Harbin's ice and snow tourism IP is now popular, which has given profound inspiration to other high-latitude cities and also brought some thoughts to itself:

First, expanding the content and scale of high-quality tourism product supply must be the first priority in the development of ice and snow tourism.

High-latitude cities with ice and snow tourism as their leading industry must adapt to the public's increasingly high-quality, diversified and personalized tourism needs, focus on the deep integration of culture and tourism, give play to their geographical advantages, explore their cultural resources, clarify the positioning of ice and snow tourism, actively build characteristic, high-quality and complex ice and snow tourism routes, create a number of ice and snow tourism destinations with their own unique style and complementary advantages, focus on developing small-group, customized and socialized high-quality ice and snow tourism products, focus on improving product quality and comfort, continuously improve the supply quantity and development quality of ice and snow tourism products, minimize the occurrence of low-level, single and homogenized phenomena, and wholeheartedly meet the diversified tourism needs of domestic and foreign tourists, including immersive, scenario-based and experiential.

Second, we must make the creation of a new type of cultural and tourism consumption cluster a top priority for the development of ice and snow tourism.

Relevant cities should learn from Harbin's practices and experiences, fully realize that ice and snow tourism is a super-long industrial chain connecting "food, accommodation, travel, shopping and entertainment", and develop as a whole and build in a diversified manner around the entire industrial chain of ice and snow sports, ice and snow culture, ice and snow equipment, and ice and snow tourism. They should make good meso-level project layout and industrial planning, increase capital investment, accelerate the development of supporting industries such as catering, accommodation, entertainment, shopping, leisure, and transportation, as well as public services such as museums, art galleries, and art galleries. They should string beads into chains, points into lines, and lines into pieces, enrich the ice and snow tourism industry, optimize ice and snow consumption scenarios, build a management platform and service platform for ice and snow tourism, consolidate the infrastructure for ice and snow tourism, form a systematic, complete and efficient service system, and clear the "blocking points" between market demand and product supply, bring tourists a more comfortable and high-end travel experience, and further enhance the support capacity of the ice and snow tourism industry on the basis of building an ice and snow tourism consumption experience industry cluster.

Third, we must regard the creation of a tourism management and consumption environment that is honest, trustworthy, harmonious and orderly as an important way to develop ice and snow tourism.

All localities should establish a development concept that puts enterprises and tourists first, transform government functions, simplify approval procedures, optimize approval processes, promote "no face-to-face" establishment of companies, handle matters with missing documents, and handle complex matters once, etc., provide a relaxed business environment and efficient service supply for ice and snow cultural tourism enterprises, resolve the contradiction between tourists' travel rights and the carrying capacity of resources and the environment, and solve the contradiction between the cognitive gap between encouraging the cultivation of new ice and snow tourism formats and optimizing supervision and service measures.

We should advocate the service concept of "everyone is a tourism image, everyone is a tourism business card", build a new regulatory mechanism based on credit, strengthen honest management and civilized service, use Internet technology and intelligent facilities, and continuously improve the quality of ice and snow tourism services, so that tourists can eat, live, travel, travel, shop and have fun, and provide tourists with a stable, orderly, harmonious and safe tourism consumption environment, so that "first-time customers" can become "returning customers". We should strengthen industry supervision, guide industry self-discipline, severely punish illegal acts such as "brushing orders and speculating on credit" and "fictitious evaluations" in accordance with the law, vigorously manage chaos, improve services, and continuously standardize the price order of scenic spots, catering, accommodation, entertainment, shopping, transportation and other links, and effectively enhance the market expectations of ice and snow tourism while protecting and safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of tourists.

Fourth, it is necessary to transform “traffic” into “retention” and turn “Internet celebrities” into “long-term celebrities” as a long-term strategy for the development of ice and snow tourism.

Harbin is a city with four distinct seasons. Ice and snow tourism is largely limited by the season. After January and February, the popularity of ice and snow tourism will inevitably cool down. Therefore, how to turn "traffic" into "retention" and make "Internet celebrities" become "long-term success" is a realistic problem that Harbin has to think about and answer strategically. In addition to relying on sincere hospitality and building a good "soft environment", it is also necessary to actively work on exploring, integrating and revitalizing local tourism resources other than ice and snow.

Harbin's existing cultural and tourism brands such as the Siberian Tiger Park, Volga Manor, St. Sophia Cathedral, Central Street, Chinese Baroque Democratic Style Street and Oroqen Reindeer Show are already well-known. We should take measures such as expanding the scale, improving the quality and enhancing the individuality to allow these cultural and tourism products that contain both world and national customs to continue to stand out. Only by truly having what others do not have and being better than others can we enrich the connotation of the city's cultural and tourism IP, form the unique competitiveness of the city's culture, and thus always occupy a place in the domestic tourism market where internal circulation is serious and competition is fierce.

Author: Liu Jinxiang; Editor: Shi Guang; Editor: Bandao

WeChat public account: Cultural Industry Review