Chinese romance economy booms with upcoming Qixi Festival

A couple celebrates the Qixi Festival in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province. Photo: IC

As the traditional Qixi Festival, Chinese Valentine's Day, approaches, the romantic atmosphere drives the continuous improvement of the consumer market in China.

This year's Qixi Festival falls on a Saturday, and major shopping malls and flower shops are preparing for the event by launching a series of special offers to attract couples and people looking to buy gifts for their loved ones.

The festival has sparked a wave of enthusiasm for the consumption of flowers and food.

At a flower shop in Shanghai, the Global Times saw that it was filled with colorful and fragrant bouquets of flowers in various sizes and the shop owner was busy cutting and arranging the flowers for customers.

“We have already started pre-ordering flowers for the Qixi Festival, and currently our orders have doubled compared to the normal period. We will be open 24 hours a day on the festival day to ensure timely delivery,” the shop owner surnamed Yao told the Global Times on Thursday.

Many people have already reserved a table in a restaurant in advance to enjoy a lavish meal on this occasion.

A Shanghai panoramic restaurant told the Global Times that its special Qixi menu, priced at 1,314 yuan ($183.54), is already fully booked and there are no seats available from Friday to Sunday.

Norah Li, a resident of Shanghai, told the Global Times on Thursday that she had booked a table at a restaurant two weeks in advance to celebrate the Qixi Festival with her fiancé on Saturday and that they also plan to buy accessories and jewelry for their wedding.

With the upcoming Qixi Festival in mind, many e-commerce platforms are offering special offers on high-end consumer goods and jewelry.

For example, the Chinese e-commerce platform Pinduoduo has launched a Qixi special promotion with discounts of up to 50 percent for numerous jewelry brands.

Douyin is offering a 15 percent discount on some selected items. The promotion covers a variety of products including beauty products, jewelry, flowers, clothing, electronics and health food to meet consumers' diverse gift-giving needs. The promotion lasts for eight days and ends on Saturday.

The “romance economy” is driving the continuous improvement of the consumer market, analysts said.

According to iiMedia Research, the gift economy market in China is expected to reach a volume of 1.37 trillion yuan by 2024, the Global Times learned from the consulting firm.

In the first six months of this year, retail sales in China's services sector rose 7.5 percent year-on-year, 4.3 percentage points more than goods, official data show.

According to a guideline released on Saturday, China will work to further develop consumer services to support high-quality economic development and meet people's demand for personalized, diverse and high-quality services.