Cinema IP × Inbound Tourism: How Chinese Films Like 'Pegasus 3' Are Fueling a New Wave of China Travel Check-ins

Cinema IP × Inbound Tourism: How Chinese Films Like Pegasus 3 Are Fueling a New Wave of China Travel Check-ins

Editor's Note: When a single film can boost hotel bookings in an entire prefecture by 210% YoY, push inbound visitor share at a canyon above 50%, and turn a Teochew-dialect indie into a Southeast Asian pilgrimage map — that is no longer a "content industry" story. It is the new growth engine of China's inbound tourism.

The Hook: Numbers That Stop You Mid-Scroll

In the 2026 Chinese New Year box office, Pegasus 3 (飞驰人生3) stood alone. Final cumulative gross surpassed RMB 4.4 billion (≈ US$610M), making it the #1 film in the global 2026 box-office ranking so far and cracking China's all-time top 10. It captured more than 50% of the Spring Festival window's RMB 5.752 billion total.

Director Han Han and lead Shen Teng pushed the cameras into the 4,500m Sichuan-Tibet plateau, the Yardang badlands of Delingha in Qinghai, and the industrial coastline of Zhenhai in Ningbo.

After the credits rolled, the real "box office" started outside the cinema:

• Garzê (Ganzi) prefecture hotel bookings +210% YoY; nearly 70% of visitors said "I came to Garzê for the film"; searches for "Jiulong self-drive guides" surged 12x¹.
• Delingha, Qinghai — with summer temperatures under 20°C — became a reverse summer-escape destination for European tourists².
• Among the top 20 inbound source countries this summer, Europe accounts for 30% of orders (+275% YoY), with scenic-area ticket orders up 20x+².
• Zhangjiajie's Grand Canyon now welcomes nearly 10,000 visitors daily in July, with inbound visitors exceeding 50% of the total².

The numbers don't lie. The inbound consumption wave powered by film IP is no isolated case — it is the "singularity moment" where China's soft-power export collides with its tourism growth strategy.

Pillar One: Chinese Cinema's "Global Visibility" Has Moved from Anomaly to Default

For a decade, "Chinese film going global" was underestimated. In 2025, the ledger is being rewritten:

Film	Overseas Result	Standout Data
Ne Zha 2	~ US$69M overseas	Global US$2.267B, ranks #4 in global box office history — the only non-Hollywood, only Asian film in the all-time top 10³
Ne Zha 2 (NA)	770+ theatres	Set a 20-year record for Chinese-language pre-sales in North America⁴
The Blading (镖人)	~ US$195M global	Multi-week weekend box-office #1 in Malaysia and Singapore⁵
Nobody (浪浪山小妖怪)	Shanxi locations	Qingming holiday rail traffic to popular Shanxi cities +16%⁶
Letter to My Grandma (给阿嬷的情书)	RMB 2.1B+ box office	2026's most-debated dialect-film phenomenon⁷

2025 total overseas box office for Chinese films: ~US$140M (≈ RMB 1B), across 46 countries and regions, with 13 titles crossing US$1M and 7 crossing US$5M⁴. This is not a single-point spike — it is the structural export of genre diversity (animation, action, wuxia, suspense, historical, dialect, sci-fi).

Most importantly, overseas audiences don't just watch Chinese films anymore — they book flights. French financial outlet BFM Business devoted a full episode to China travel; CNN paired the "Chinese AC export boom" with the inbound-tourism surge; Italian traveler Marco moved his September China trip forward because "Rome has been 40°C for weeks, while China is cool and humid"².

Chinese cinema has evolved past the single tag of "Kung Fu China" into a composite calling card of "Eastern mythology + industrial spectacle + grounded realism + regional culture."

Pillar Two: From Filming Location to Check-in Destination — The "China Formula" of Film-Tourism

Mao Yu, deputy director of the National Film Administration, put it simply: "A small ticket stub can leverage a big market." Behind that sentence is a conversion formula that has already proven itself across China.

Case 1: Pegasus 3 × Delingha, Qinghai

70% of the production budget went into location shooting. The crew pushed into 4,500m elevation in Sichuan's Jiulong county, the Delingha badlands, and Zhenhai's industrial coast. One of the locations — Qinghai Dulan's "Rainbow Danxia · Star Valley" — is now free to enter, complete with Pegasus 3 themed murals, racing-suit try-ons, and a finish-line arch. UTV all-terrain vehicles let visitors replay the film's most iconic shots⁸. With July-August temperatures under 20°C plus stargazing camps and Gobi camels, the site hits European travelers' "summer escape + exotic" double demand.

Case 2: Letter to My Grandma × Chaoshan Trio

A RMB 14M budget. 95% non-professional actors. A Teochew-dialect film. By day 25 it had crossed RMB 1 billion⁷. 70% of the film was shot in the old streets of Shantou, Jieyang and Chaozhou. All three cities responded in record time:

• Shantou: launched three "Mountain-Sea · Hometown of Overseas Chinese" themed routes linking Jinnan Old Cinema, Dongli's Grandma's old house, and Zhanglin Ancient Port; the Qiaopi Museum added a dedicated "Film & Qiaopi Letters" exhibition⁷.
• Jieyang: removed construction scaffolding on West Main Street to let the original arcade facades reappear, recreating the film's "Old Siam" atmosphere⁷.
• Chaozhou: activated intangible-heritage scenes — embroidery, ceramics, woodcarving, gongfu tea — in heritage sites and boutique B&Bs, turning "screen symbols" into "experiential touchpoints"⁷.
• Overseas visitors can flash a movie stub for discounts at 100+ local F&B and attractions vendors — a textbook "stub economy."

Case 3: Avatar Franchise × Zhangjiajie, Hunan

Zhangjiajie National Forest Park is the world's most-recognised "Chinese filming location." In December 2025, the park published its "Top 10 Avatar Filming Sites" (Qiankun Pillar, Yubi Peak, Heavenly Princess Scattering Flowers, Yunqing Cliff, Star-Picking Platform, Ninefold Fairy Pavilion, Skybridge Pillar Remnant, Water-Wrapping-Four-Gates, General's Array, King-Wang Reading)⁹ and built two "Real Pandora Discovery Routes." From January-November 2025, Zhangjiajie welcomed ~1.25 million inbound visitors from 192 countries, +31.1% YoY¹⁰. Korean variety show Hong In-kyu's Golf TV even shot an episode at Baofeng Lake¹¹.

Case 4: The Litchi of Chang'an × Xiangyang (Hubei) + Jiangmen (Guangdong)

• Hubei Xiangyang's Tang Dynasty Cinema City (Hua'e Xianghui Tower, Mingde Gate, Vermilion Bird Corridor, Xuanzheng Hall) — the main "Chang'an" set¹².
• Guangdong Jiangmen's Xinhui Nantan Betel Palm Forest (800 mu of palms) and Yangchun Gangmei Lihuang Village's 100-year lychee orchard (40 mu, 90+ ancient trees) — the Lingnan scenes¹².

Case 5: Nobody × Qikou Ancient Town, Shanxi

A 2025 hit 2D animation in ink-wash style and Journey-to-the-West-inspired world-building. CGTN followed a British teacher, Rees, taking a themed high-speed train from Taiyuan to Lüliang's Qikou Ancient Town to step into the film's sets¹³. Qingming holiday rail traffic to popular Shanxi destinations grew 16%+¹³.

Case 6: Mission: Panda × Wengding, Yunnan

"The Last Primitive Tribe of China" — Wa bamboo-thatch homes, primeval forest, Cangyuan cliff paintings — all driven onto screens by this film¹⁴.

The pattern is now clear: A breakout Chinese film can drive 30% to 300%+ visitor growth at 2-3 of its filming locations. "Traveling to a city for a film" is replacing "checking photos online" as the new decision path for inbound travelers.

Pillar Three: Multi-Ministerial "Film-Tourism Integration" Is Now a Top-Level Policy

This is not market-led luck. It is the product of precise policy escort.

Date	Policy / Campaign	Lead Agencies
2024.07.30	"Follow the Film to Travel" National Launch (Hangzhou West Lake)	CPC Publicity Dept. Film Bureau + MOC Tourism Resource Development
2025.01.20	"Taste the Food in Films" National Launch (Beijing)	National Film Administration + MOFCOM
2025.01.23	2025 "Follow the Film to Travel" National Launch (Dezhou Leling Cinema City)	CPC Publicity Dept. Film Bureau + MOC
2025.04.18	"China Film Consumption Year" Launch + film-themed trains	National Film Administration + CMG + China State Railway Group
2026.01	State Council Guideline on Cultivating New Growth Points for Culture & Tourism Consumption — explicitly building the "Follow the Film to Travel" brand¹⁵	State Council
2026.05	"Follow the Film to Travel" 2025 National Day Special Promotion	Film Bureau + MOC Tourism Resource Development¹⁶

Innovative mechanisms:

• Stub economy: nearly 100 scenic areas (Xianyang Li-Jing Residence, Nanyang Laojieling, Zibo Lushan, etc.) accept film stubs for free/discounted entry. Zhejiang alone distributed RMB 36.8M in film consumption vouchers in summer 2025, with 281 scenic/commercial districts in 11 cities participating¹⁷.
• Themed trains & cruise: "Follow the Film to Travel" Panda Express, themed rail carriages, and Adora Magic City cruise's "film + tourism" special edition¹⁶.
• Cross-vertical consumption: Beijing's Meituan campaign gave out RMB 10M in F&B vouchers; Shaanxi issued RMB 21M in vouchers (RMB 8M film + RMB 13M F&B)¹⁶.
• Overseas reach: "Overseas Thousand Screens" played Chinese film trailers in 20+ countries. CGTN and the Film Administration jointly run the "Travel China Through Film" campaign.

National Film Administration data: Every RMB 1 of box office drives RMB 15.77 of related-industry output¹⁸. A RMB 4.4B film like Pegasus 3 therefore levers nearly RMB 70 billion in full-chain consumption — a far higher ROI than traditional destination-marketing films.

Industry Significance: A Paradigm Shift from "Tourism Marketing" to "Cultural IP Marketing"

For the past 20 years, China's inbound tourism playbook was resource-driven + channel-bought: pretty mountains and heritage sites on the asset side; OTAs, foreign media, and overseas tourism boards on the channel side. The problem: the resources were always there — the real pain point was how to turn overseas travelers' curiosity into action.

Chinese cinema is now offering a third path:

1. Low empathy barrier — A film is a 120-minute emotional journey. By the time the credits roll, the audience has already "been" to the destination. Decision cost collapses.

2. Strong cultural penetration — One Ne Zha 2 lets global audiences feel "I am the master of my fate," an order of magnitude deeper than a generic "Welcome to China" ad.

3. Long content-tail — UGC clips on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram keep extending the destination's visibility for months after release.

4. Lower trust cost — Overseas audiences trust professional reviewers and peer recommendations far more than official tourism PSAs.

In short, cinema is the gateway to cultural soft power, with far more penetration than the traditional tourism marketing film. Whoever first packages "film + travel" into a real product will capture the largest share of inbound growth in the next 5 years.

The CTP View: Filming-Location Inventory for Four Core Provinces

China Travel Plus has long tracked inbound-tourism trends in the five priority provinces of Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hunan and Yunnan. Combined with this "Cinema IP × Inbound" wave, here is a ready-to-package product list:

Guangdong (粤) — Dialect Film × Hometown-of-Chinese-Culture × Modern Metropolis

• Core IP: Letter to My Grandma (Shantou/Jieyang/Chaozhou), The Silent Score (90% shot in Shenzhen), The Litchi of Chang'an (Jiangmen/Yangchun), The Hunt (Guangzhou/Jiangmen/Macau), Boonie Bears (Chaoshan Yingge dance culture).
• Suggested package: "Cantonese Film 5-Day Deep Dive" — Shenzhen → Jiangmen (Palm Forest + Lychee Orchard) → Yangchun (Karst) → Shantou (Qiaopi Letters) → Chaozhou (Old City + Intangible Heritage) → Jieyang (Arcade Streets).

Zhejiang (浙) — Province with the Most Mature Stub Economy

• Core IP: Pegasus 3 (Zhenhai, Ningbo), The Litchi of Chang'an, and linkages with Nobody.
• Edge: 281 scenic/commercial districts across 11 cities participate in the stub economy. The "Film Stub Enjoyment Platform" has onboarded 3,500+ vendors¹⁷.
• Suggested package: "Zhejiang Film-Stub Grand Tour" — Hangzhou (Liangzhu + Xixi) → Ningbo (Qiantong Ancient Town + Zhenhai Coastal Defense) → Shaoxing (Baizhang Waterfall + Night Cruise on Ejiang River) → Lishui (Yunhe Terraces + Yunzhong Daji) → Zhoushan (Island Film Scenes).

Hunan (湘) — Natural Landscape + Long-Established Filming Heritage

• Core IP: Avatar (Hallelujah Mountain prototype at Zhangjiajie), Journey to the West, Monster Hunt 2, The Starry Love, Fox Fairy of Tianmen Mountain (Tianmen Mountain), Korean variety show Hong In-kyu's Golf TV (Baofeng Lake).
• Suggested package: "Pandora Discovery 6-Day Tour" — Zhangjiajie National Forest Park (Yuanjiajie + Tianzi Mountain + Huangshizhai + Jinbian Stream) → Tianmen Mountain (Fox Fairy Live Show) → Fenghuang Ancient Town (Tuojiang Night Cruise + Miao Silver) → Changsha (Wenheyou + Xiangjiang Night Cruise).

Yunnan (滇) — Multi-Ethnic + Pristine Wilderness

• Core IP: Mission: Panda (Cangyuan Wengding), Full Moon (Dali), Youth (Mengzi Bisezhai), Forever Young, One Meter of Sunshine, Breakup Buddies.
• Suggested package: "West Yunnan Filming-Location Loop 7 Days" — Kunming → Dali (Cangshan & Erhai) → Lijiang (Shuhe Ancient Town) → Mengzi (Bisezhai Railway Station) → Cangyuan (Wengding Tribe + Cliff Paintings).

Cross-province projection: Using the +275% European order / +20x ticket growth² as the baseline, a single monthly 8-10 group departure of any "Film-themed Tour" can conservatively drive 1-1.5 million additional annual inbound visitors per province — with a repeat-spend potential of EUR 800-1,500 per traveler.

Closing: From Silver Screen to Mountain and Water — Chinese Cinema Is Rewriting the Inbound Tourism Playbook

China's 2026 inbound tourism story has moved beyond a policy-driven and resource-driven two-engine model. It is now an upgraded policy × resource × cultural IP three-engine model.

Pegasus 3 did not just light up Qinghai, Sichuan and Ningbo. It proved a new formula: When a Chinese film breaks through globally, its filming locations automatically become "seed players" for inbound tourism. Layered on top with the National Film Administration's "Follow the Film to Travel" top-level design, the cross-vertical stub-economy, and the long tail of overseas social-media UGC, film IP has already become China's most penetrating marketing weapon for inbound tourism.

For overseas Chinese travel agencies, inbound-tourism customisers, hotel groups and cultural-tourism investors, the question for the next 12-24 months is not whether to engage with film-tourism integration — it is how to convert IP traffic into a sustainable, packaged product.

This is the content dividend window of China's inbound tourism — and the very window China Travel Plus is ready to seize with every partner.

Recommended China Travel Tours

Pair your reading with a hand-picked itinerary from our real tour collection:

• Colorful South: Dali and Lijiang Ancient Town| 5 Days 4 Nights Snow Mountain and Ethnic Minority — A classic Yunnan route designed for first-time visitors to China. Stroll through Lijiang Ancient City's Square Street, g
• Yunnan Wellness Journey: Kunming Hot Spring & Lijiang Ancient Town 5-Day Healing Tour — 5-day Yunnan wellness: Kunming hot springs, Dali Bai herbal bath, Lijiang & Jade Dragon.

Sources

1. Sichuan Online, "When Pegasus 3 Meets Western Sichuan" (2026-04-28)

2. CCTV / Yicai, "Summer 2026 European Inbound Orders +275% YoY" (2026-07-22)

3. Xinhua, "Ne Zha 2 Climbs to #4 in Global Box Office History" (2026-04-09)

4. National Film Administration, "RMB 1 Billion: How Chinese Cinema Is Winning Global Fans" (2025-10-24)

5. People's Daily Overseas Edition, "The Blading Sweeps Southeast Asia"

6. CGTN, "From Screen to Scenery: A British Traveler's Movie-Themed Train Journey to Qikou" (2026-04-15)

7. Southern News / Xin Kuaibao, "From Film Flow to Tourism Retention" (2026-05-25)

8. Headline / Travel Blog, "Qinghai Delingha Rainbow Danxia · Star Valley Guide"

9. Wulingyuan News, "Zhangjiajie Releases Top 10 Avatar Filming Sites" (2025-12-16)

10. Zhangjiajie Government / China Daily, "Into China's Dreamscape Beyond the Clouds" (2026-01-08)

11. Hunan Daily, "From Avatar to Korean Variety Shows, Wulingyuan's Global Cultural-Tourism Influence Rises" (2026-03-22)

12. CCTV News, "Travel with the Films! These Check-in Spots Are Ultra Photogenic" (2025-10-05)

13. CGTN, "Reel Views, Real Journeys" series

14. Sichuan Release, "2026 Spring Festival Filming-Location Recommendations" (2026-02-18)

15. State Council Office, "Several Measures on Cultivating New Growth Points for Culture & Tourism Consumption" (Guobanfa [2025] No. 2)

16. National Film Administration / China Film News, "One-Year Review of the 'Film+' New Consumption Model" (2025-09-30)

17. Qianjiang Evening News / Tide News, "'Film Stub Enjoyment Platform' Goes Live" (2026-07-15)

18. National Film Administration, "2025 Total Box Office RMB 51.832B, Full-Chain Industry Output RMB 817.259B"