Virtual tour of Beijing's famous Qianmen Street opens

Located at the center of Beijing near Tiananmen Square, Qianmen Street, no more than 2 km long, has been a prosperous area for more than 600 years and has accumulated some long-standing stores. Many well-known Chinese stores started their operations there.

Sept. 28 was the first anniversary of the opening of the Qianmen Street market and a 3D Qianmen tour was also launched on the Internet at the same time. Netizens can go sightseeing and shopping on the Internet.

The Web address of the Qianmen tour is at www.qianmenyou.com. On Sept. 29, after downloading the client and creating a virtual character, our reporter visited the "pailou" of Qianmen. The reporter "wandered" on Qianmen Street and met enthusiastic tour guides, storytellers wearing long gowns and other visitors, and even enjoyed the scenery in a streetcar.

Qianmen is a long-standing commercial street, and people taking the online Qianmen tour can also carry out transactions. It has virtual stores imitating physical shops and 3D assistants to solicit customers. The Qianmen tour, which now is still in the phase of public testing, currently has 18 online shopping stores and people can choose and purchase merchandise in three online stores, namely Shangzhenge, Honggu and Hongluo.

Some commodities, including food, clothes, tea, jewelry and handicrafts, have been registered on the online shopping pages of the Qianmen tour. The online shops have not yet been opened but the notice of "related goods gradually opening to the public" has people full of expectations.

An official from the Dongcheng District Government said that Qianmen Street is the cultural and creative industries region and a distinctive city-level commercial street supported by Beijing. It has been chosen as one of the 10 informationalized infrastructure pilots by the Beijing Government. The Qianmen tour will continue to enrich content, add merchants and demonstrate the ancient styles and features in the Qianmen region.

By People's Daily Online