Lijiang's cultural industries thrive

Cultural industry becomes a major driving force of development for Lijiang city, Yunnan province. In 2016, the added value of cultural industry accounted for 5.82 percent of the city's GDP.

By releasing guidelines and carrying out various cultural projects, the city has made a great number of achievements in developing cultural products, attracting cultural elites and building cultural innovation and exhibition bases.

The comprehensive market system of the cultural industry keeps improving in the city. As of 2016, the city has 873 culture-related legal entities, among which 28 are enterprises above designated size. Those 28 enterprises made a turnover of more than 1 billion yuan ($15.07 million) in 2016, a year-on-year increase of 22.3 percent.

City authorities managed to integrate cultural aspects into tourism, sports, and scientific and technological industries. By combining cultural and tourism resources together, cultural enterprises have found new commercial opportunities and tourists are enriched with the city's unique culture.

The authorities also guide major market participants to expand the industrial scales of cultural performances, tourism and artifacts and help them improve brand awareness and cultivate intellectual properties.

The service industry has become the pillar sector of cultural industries. Among the 873 cultural legal entities, 757 engage in service industries, accounting for 86.7 percent, and 23 of the 28 enterprises above designated size are service-orientated, accounting for 82 percent. All the culture-related service industries made an added value of 1.586 billion yuan in 2016, occupying 88.1 percent of the total cultural industries' income.

Given the city's abundance of ethnic cultural resources and unique landscapes, the successful development of Lijiang's cultural industries is unsurprising. But the progressive development didn't come without aid. Preferential policies were released by the government to encourage social capital to be invested into cultural industries. Advanced management and operation models were also adopted. Additionally, by cooperating with well-known directors and high-tech enterprises, Lijiang hosted a series of festival activities and art performances that became popular around the country.

Statistics show that performances, such as "Li Water Golden Sand" and "Lijiang Impression", have been staged more than 2,500 times, making an income of 430 million yuan. The number of attendees to watch movies at the Lijiang Film Company exceeded one million, contributing 15 million yuan to box offices.

Since listed as a pilot city of cultural consumption in June 2016, Lijiang strived to improve their consumption environment to meet the various personalized needs of tourists from all over the world. In 2016, the city invested 555 million yuan to the fixed assets of culture, sports and entertainment industries, increasing by 62.6 percent from the previous year. To become a communication center to South Asia and Southeast Asia and to build a national cultural corridor featuring Zang, Qiang and Yi ethnic groups, Lijiang sped up the construction of major cultural projects. The projects that are under construction include the Education and Culture Park in Yongsheng County, which cost 1.9 billion yuan, and the Culture Sports Center in Haping County, totaling 500 million yuan. Other projects, such as a municipal museum, art gallery, museum for intangible cultural heritages, broadcast media center and the Lijiang Theatre were also launched.

The consumption of culture, education and entertainment keep increasing in the city thanks to the improvement of cultural services and the enhancement of cultural products. In 2016, the per capita expense on culture-related activities of residents was 2,004 yuan - an increase of 22 percent from 2015. The demands for cultural entertainment from residents will further boost the development of cultural industries and encourage enterprises and authorities to improve cultural products.