The 2017 Ningbo Shopping Festival has opened on Aug 11 with a total of 200 activities. The festival will last for 17 days to spur consumer spending through sales and special promotions.
A series of city-level activities such as the first Crawfish Food Festival and the Furniture Fair attracted lots of consumers. Along with the opening of Ningbo's first underground commercial complex Dong Gudao, events to probe into the evolution of the old town in Ningbo caught people's eyes.
In addition to offline promotions, Alipay, an online payment app, has created a special page for the festival to help users easily pinpoint stores which participate in the festival. Live broadcast and e-sports events will provide young consumers with recreational sites.
What's new this year, however, is 41 of these 200 activities are themed at culture. Sales promotions are no longer the only point in the festival.
Some exhibitions with special features of Ningbo's culture are worth visiting. An exhibition of architectural humanistic stories called "Moon Lake Garden's story" will be on show from Aug 12 to Sep 2 in Moon Lake Garden, Ningbo. The history of Moon Lake Garden can be traced back to the Westernization Movement in modern times. It maintains building style and a feature of Ningbo in Ming and Qing dynasties.