On the evening of September 28, the 2026 Xuzhou Han Culture Tourism Festival got under way on the shore of Yunlong Lake, with the launch ceremony staged at the sunken plaza of the Yunlong Lake Concert Hall. Several thousand invited guests and residents filled the site for the start of a program that runs into late October.
Ten Cities Join the Opening
Song Lewei, secretary of the Xuzhou Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, Mayor Shen Junfeng and Wang Anshun, director of the standing committee of the Xuzhou People’s Congress, opened the festival together. Li Chuan, deputy director of the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, attended, along with city leaders, heads of central media bureaus in Jiangsu, and culture and tourism officials from ten cities across Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong and Henan. Online travel platforms and major domestic tour operators sent representatives.
Xuzhou’s municipal government hosts the festival, and the city’s publicity department, its culture, radio, television and tourism bureau, and county and district governments organise it. The theme this year is “A Millennium of Han Style, Seven Li of Pengcheng.” Under it the city has scheduled more than 280 activities across six sections and eight series: immersive performances along the Pengcheng Qili corridor, a market blending commerce, tourism, sport and culture, scenic-area programs, concerts and music festivals, study tours, theatre and small-venue opera, mass cultural events, and museum and library exhibitions.
Nine partner cities joined the launch on stage. Suzhou (Anhui), Shangqiu, Linyi, Heze, Huaibei, Jining, Lianyungang, Suqian and Zaozhuang sent culture and tourism delegates who, together with Xuzhou’s representative, lit up a map on an oversized phone model, a gesture the organisers described as opening a regional travel network built on shared routes and shared visitors.
A tourism product built on six numbers was released at the ceremony. “One City” is Pengcheng itself: Xuzhou has held national historic and cultural city status for 40 years and carries four claims at once, the homeland of Peng Zu, the capital of Xiang Yu, the birthplace of Liu Bang and a posting of Su Shi. “Two Han Dynasties” refers to the Western and Eastern Han, the deepest layer of the city’s tourism identity, which officials now describe as moving from history into a new kind of trend. “Three Meals” stands for Peng Zu’s pheasant broth, Xuzhou griddle flatbread and Xuzhou barbecue. “Four Seasons” covers spring flower routes, summer water parks, autumn Han-style gatherings and winter ice and snow trips. “Seven Li” and “a Millennium” name the Pengcheng Qili axis, the historic corridor that runs north to south through the old city and spans the Neolithic period to the present.
Reading the Season in Platform Data
Six platforms sent representatives to read the season back to the city. Douyin recorded 2.7 billion views, 67.76 million searches and 49,000 livestreams for Xuzhou in the first half of the year, with one million users redeeming offers. Tongcheng reported that both visitor numbers and order volume grew faster than in any other Jiangsu city, and that Xuzhou is the only one of the province’s 13 cities to post visitor growth above 10% for two consecutive years.
Spending data pointed the same way. Ctrip put Xuzhou 52nd among China’s 100 must-visit destinations and 84th on its Asia list, with inbound visitor numbers and spending both rising. Meituan measured visitor dining spending up nearly 30% and visitor spending in shopping malls up nearly 40%, naming earth-pot chicken and flatbread rolls with fried dough twists as the dishes visitors seek out. Xiaohongshu found Xuzhou holding first place for search interest within its region, with Han culture driving the rise and out-of-town users accounting for 68% of that interest.
Transport told its own version of the story. Didi logged steady growth in daily ride-hailing orders, with out-of-town passenger orders rising more than 10% for a second year and the pace of growth placing Xuzhou among the top ten nationally. The Beijing News’ think tank moved the city from first place on last year’s list of cities with internet-famous potential to 19th on this year’s list of cities with staying power.
A Six-Part Stage Program
After the launch sequence came a large-scale production titled “Theatre in Pengcheng,” built on Han-dynasty ritual music, regional opera, folk custom, narrative rap and costume display. It ran as six chapters across multiple stages and multiple performance points, switching between them without a break.
“Eight Instruments in Concert, Lanterns and Drums” recreated court ritual music and dance of the Han court. “The Dragon-Taming Youths” put more than a dozen African students from Xuzhou Institute of Technology behind a dragon prop. “Lotus Picking, Rice Planting, Cuju” used three scene dances to rebuild Han-era daily life. “Han Yuefu Lyrics and the Song of the Great Wind” combined a Hanfu fashion segment with fire-spitting, face-changing and lion dance. “The Great Yellow Tower, Ode to Flood Control” wove Xuzhou qinshu rap and liuqin opera into the story of Su Shi directing flood defences as prefect of the city in the Northern Song. “Beacon Smoke and the Reviewing Stand” closed the sequence with long-robe martial opera.
Weng Guosheng, the production’s chief director, noted the range of forms the show drew on. “Theatre in Pengcheng contains dozens of performance styles, and the teams came from 46 different units,” he stated. “They overcame repeated rain during rehearsals to finish the performance, which was moving.” Nearly 400 performers and crew took the curtain call together, and the evening ended with the audience joining a chorus of “My Motherland and I.”
The ceremony was carried live by the Jiangsu culture and tourism accounts Water Rhyme Jiangsu and Cultural Tourism Xuzhou, along with Xuzhou Release, Wireless Xuzhou, Xuzhou News and Kuaizai Xuzhou, and by new media outlets in the nine partner cities.
Hanfu Parades in the Second Week of October
During the festival Xuzhou will hold a Hanfu carnival on October 10 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., staged at the Confucius Temple hall square, Jiangbei’s First Tower, Hubu Mountain and Huilongwo. Organisers will select Hanfu enthusiasts and online personalities to form a children’s Han-style formation, a youth Hanfu NPC group and a senior troupe, then send them along the Pengcheng Qili corridor in a series of parades.
Other program blocks include a live performance flash-mob series running October 2 to 4 at the Swallow Pavilion in Yunlong Park and Kuaizai Pavilion Park; a Han-dynasty games fair from October 1 to 5, with a garden party on October 3 at Kuaizai Pavilion Park; and a music gathering on October 4 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Qianlong Palace. County and district governments are running their own events in parallel.
Four cartoon mascots appeared on stage as tourism ambassadors: Tiezai, the city’s own character; Qiubaobao, the Jiangsu Super League’s Xuzhou-zone mascot; Xu Chenggong for the construction machinery maker XCMG; and Haoyun Fulong Xubao for the Xuzhou metro.
Singers, writers and online figures were recruited to speak for the city during the ceremony. The guofeng musician Qiran performed “Qie Xu Xing.” Zheng Jing, the earth-pot chicken champion from Hunan TV and Mango TV’s hometown food contest, turned the invitation toward the table. The Hanfu influencer Kellyn spoke about the city’s costumes and its autumn colour. Wang Zitong, a bronze medallist in restaurant service at the 47th WorldSkills Competition, described the city as generous with a fine-grained side. The web novelist Xiaoqixiao followed up a novel set in Xuzhou with a second appearance. Philipp, an international video creator known to Chinese audiences as Lao Qin, spoke in fluent Chinese about the city as a home of Han culture, then repeated the welcome in German. Wang Jibing, the delivery rider turned poet who won the Lu Xun Literature Prize, sent a video message.
A Xuzhou culture, radio, television and tourism bureau official said the city would meet the varied demands of holiday visitors with a full slate of programming and invited guests from across the country to join the season.
