Watching movies under the starry sky in rural areas, enjoying barbecue and delicious food on outdoor lawns. On the first day of the May Day holiday, a barbecue, beer, and film festival attracted a large number of tourists to Wanshan Film Park located in Changchong Village, Wanshan Town, Lujiang County, Hefei City, Anhui Province. Amidst the green mountains and clear waters, people experience a unique charm of light and shadow, unlocking new experiences of rural trendy play. There are many people coming today, and the outdoor barbecue, beer, and film festival activities are particularly popular among young tourists and families with children. ”Xia Zepei, the person in charge of Wanshan Film Park and the chairman of Shenzhen Taide Cultural Industry Development Co., Ltd., said, "We are collaborating with nearby rural cultural and tourism projects such as Time Camp to explore new forms of 'film+' rural cultural and tourism consumption. Consumption is the main engine driving economic growth. In 2026, the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference explicitly proposed to "stimulate the consumption vitality of the sinking market". Combining local characteristics, integrating diverse business formats, and exploring new demands, various new consumer activities are driving the upward growth of China's sinking market. The sinking market is a new blue ocean for expanding consumption and improving quality. Taking this year's Spring Festival box office as an example, the contribution rate of box office in third - and fourth tier cities has exceeded 50%. At the same time, 'Film+' is also radiating to multiple fields and dimensions. ”Xia Zepei said. The characteristics of great potential, broad depth, personalization, and differentiation are obvious, which is the portrait of the sinking market by industry insiders, and also the attraction of the sinking market to boost consumption. Rabbit lamp, lotus lamp, turnip lamp... In Hongcun Village, Mount Huangshan City, Anhui Province, in the night, various handmade lamps slowly walk along the lane with tourists. The white walls and black tiles are lined with warm yellow lights, and the bluestone road is slowly lit up, as if crossing back to ancient Huizhou. As a representative project of intangible cultural heritage in Mount Huangshan City, the "Lantern Festival" in Yixian County has now become a popular cultural and tourism activity integrating "lantern making+lantern parade". Many tourists have changed the previous practice of "visiting ancient villages in the daytime" and made a special trip to the park in the afternoon to join the parade in order to make a lantern by themselves. The popularity of "sinking tourism" has been confirmed in the "2026 May Day Travel Trend Report" released by Tongcheng Travel: this year's May Day, the booking heat of travel products related to county-level destinations has increased by 128% year-on-year, leading the growth rate of provincial capital cities. Fujian Pingtan, Zhejiang Anji, Guilin Yangshuo, Guizhou Libo, Shanxi Pingyao, Yunnan Jianshui and other popular destinations have entered the top ten. As a result, there has been a comprehensive increase in demand for self driving, homestays, catering, cultural and creative industries across the entire consumption chain. According to the report "New Era County Economy" released by the National High end Think Tank of Xinhua News Agency in November 2025, as of 2024, the total economic output of China's counties will reach 54 trillion yuan, accounting for nearly 40% of the country's gross domestic product. The seventh national census data shows that the population size of counties in China is 725 million, accounting for 51.5% of the total population. The huge economy and population have solidified the development foundation of county-level consumption, and also contain enormous space for upgrading consumption in the sinking market. New types of consumption in fields such as pet economy, silver economy, sports economy, and experience economy continue to emerge. Every Friday, the flower, bird, fish, insect and pet market in Suzhou City, Anhui Province is crowded with people. During the weekly centralized trading day, almost all of the more than 380 shops are crowded with merchants. Suzhou, located in the northern part of Anhui Province, has become the largest live pet trading market in East China after nearly 20 years of development, with a transaction volume of about 600 million yuan in 2025. Five years ago, dogs and cats were mostly kept in first - and second tier cities, but now in third - and fourth tier cities, even many county and township residents are raising pets. ”Yang Zhonghua, a merchant in the flower, bird, fish, insect and pet market, said that from pet food to cat litter, bath products and other pet supplies, from pet medical care to foster care and other pet services, the consumer categories and scenarios are becoming increasingly diverse. At the beginning of this year, a data conference on China's pet industry was held in Suzhou. The "2026 China Pet Industry White Paper (Consumption Report)" released at the conference shows that the pet consumption market in China will steadily grow by 2025, with the urban pet (dog and cat) consumption market reaching 312.6 billion yuan, an increase of 4.1% compared to 2024; The consumption of single pets continues to increase, with an average annual consumption of 3006 yuan per dog and 2085 yuan per cat, both reaching historical highs. In the first quarter of this year, the total retail sales of consumer goods in China reached nearly 13 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.4%, with a growth rate 0.7 percentage points faster than the fourth quarter of last year. The National Bureau of Statistics analyzed that although the consumer market is running well, the supply of high-quality goods and services cannot fully meet the diversified consumption needs. It is necessary to further stabilize employment, promote income growth, vigorously optimize the consumption environment, innovate consumption patterns, and continuously unleash consumption potential. Efforts are being made across the country to create better conditions for expanding and improving consumption in the sinking market. Gansu Province has developed a civilized and precise system, relying on natural ecological resources, key villages for rural tourism, and historical and cultural towns and villages, to build a cluster of boutique homestays and develop integrated products such as "homestays+agricultural experiences", "homestays+intangible cultural heritage handicrafts", and "homestays+health and wellness tourism"; Xinjiang proposes to implement county-level commercial quality and efficiency improvement actions, focusing on cultivating a group of county-level commercial leading counties, while promoting the construction of standardized village level postal logistics comprehensive service stations, supporting the deployment of intelligent express boxes in rural areas, and improving the level of rural postal services; Shandong aims to optimize the policy of exchanging old for new consumer goods, highlighting the sinking market and offline physical stores, and plans to launch thousands of new consumer scenarios throughout the year. As a traditional agricultural city, Suzhou plans to tap into the potential of pet economy. The "Suzhou Pet Industry Development Plan (2025-2030)" proposes to cultivate its own brands and pet health products in the medium and long term, explore the cross-border integration of "pets+culture and tourism", improve the "production+processing+service" chain, and form differentiated competitiveness through the trading of live pets, raw material supply, and OEM. Not only is the outlook for the pet economy promising, but there will also be more, better, and larger consumption in the sinking market that will continue to upgrade. ”Wang Yunliang, a member of the Party Group of the Agriculture and Rural Bureau of Suzhou City, said. (Looking into the New Era)