Chinese consumers enjoy more diverse range of online leisure services

Chinese people nowadays have access to a more diverse range of online leisure products and services, from traditional options including listening to music, watching videos, and online chat, to new offerings such as livestreaming sessions, as more services and products have become digitalized.

A visitor looks at scarves with patterns featuring frescoes in the UNESCO World Heritage site Mogao Grottoes during an exhibition held at the Yangtze River Delta International Cultural Industries Expo. (People’s Daily Online/Wang Chu)

Last year, China’s National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) held a series of online performances, bringing a cultural feast to audiences both at home and abroad.

More audiences watched the online performances, which are an effective way of helping them enjoy high art and cultivate their interest in the field, according to Gong Jicheng, deputy head of the NCPA.

Gong added that people watching online performances can also get a better audio-visual experience by switching between different types of shots.

A staff member with Dongzhou neighborhood, Fuyang district, Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang province launches a livestreaming show to promote rural tourism. (Photo/Xinhua)

Like the NCPA, many museums have launched online exhibitions, while a large number of scenic spots have made online sightseeing more accessible, allowing people to enjoy a richer leisure life online.

The Dunhuang Academy, which administers the Mogao Grottoes, a renowned UNESCO World Heritage site in northwest China's Gansu province, launched a mini-program on social media platform WeChat, allowing visitors to enjoy the frescoes in the grottoes with the help of digital technologies, including virtual reality.

Some online leisure activities are also helping to connect people. Thanks to a new feature introduced by NetEase Cloud Music, one of China's most popular music streaming platforms, users can now share a song or a playlist with their friends, simultaneously listen to the same song together, and share their feelings about it.

"Our users nowadays pay more attention to the individuals whom they are sharing a song with and their feelings about it when they listen to the music together. In the past, they cared more about the songs that we offered them," said an executive of the platform.

Experts said online leisure activities, including sharing playlists and writing comments on music audio streaming apps like NetEase Cloud Music, livestreaming sessions, and video websites’ bullet screens, or real-time comments, enable people to share their ideas and opinions.

Chinese citizens on average spent 4.9 hours a day online for leisure in 2020, according to a report on the development of China's leisure industry issued by the Tourism Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Experts said online leisure activities, including sharing playlists and writing comments on music audio streaming apps like NetEase Cloud Music, livestreaming sessions, and video websites’ bullet screens, or real-time comments, enable people to share their ideas and opinions.