Guangzhou releases map for nighttime tourism

The capital of southern China’s Guangdong Province has rolled out a map highlighting commercial clusters for evening activities, as the city aims to spur its “nighttime economy.”

The nighttime economy refers to business activities between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. in the service sector. Many Chinese cities, especially metropolises such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, have rolled out plans to support nighttime consumption to drive economic growth.

The map of nighttime consumption, published by the Guangzhou Municipal Commerce Bureau, lays out 15 nighttime consumption landmarks including some of the city’s well-known shopping malls and creative art zones.

The city will continue to improve infrastructure and public services, as well as hold symbolic festive and night events in the night consumption clusters, according to the bureau.

Lawmakers in the Macau SAR recently expressed an interest in seeing the government develop nighttime activities for tourists. They suggested that shifting some events later into the day would help to ease overtourism pressures.

China’s nighttime consumption has seen growth recently. Since June, the market for nighttime food delivery services has significantly expanded and seen a growing legion of takeaway delivery drivers, according to data from Eleme, Alibaba’s flagship takeaway-ordering app.

Nighttime catering consumption jumped 47 percent in 2018 from a year earlier, 2 percent higher than the daytime growth, according to a report released by the China Tourism Academy and Meituan, a Yelp-like Chinese online city guide. DB/Xinhua