“The value brought by NPC is to extend the stay time of tourists. When the stay time is longer, secondary consumption will increase.”
Text/Ba Jiuling
National scenic spots, bet on NPC
In domestic scenic spots, NPCs (role-playing characters) have become very popular.
Since March, more than 50 scenic spots have released NPC positions, and scenic spots have continuously spent millions or tens of millions of funds to recruit NPCs. Almost all types of scenic spots are accelerating their entry into the market. During the National Day holiday, the competition for NPCs can be seen in scenic spots in various places.
In the Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City in Kaifeng, Henan, a “Wang Po” has been born who is a matchmaker. She can often be seen touring various places to set up matchmaking events, and the scene is very popular;
At the Jilin Changchun Zoological and Botanical Garden, a “Snow Cake Monkey” appeared – fully dressed as a Monkey King, full of witty and humorous conversations. People from all over the country queued up to talk to him;
In the Tang Dynasty Evernight City in Xi’an, the “roly-poly lady” with her fairy spirit and beautiful movements has long detonated the popularity of the scenic spot, and everyone wants to hold her hand.
At the same time, the number of visitors to the Long live Mountain Martial Arts City will reach 24.522 million in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 146.9%, and its revenue will increase approximately 15 times in three years; the number of visitors to the Changchun Zoological and Botanical Garden will reach 3 million in 2025, compared with less than one million in 2023.
There is no doubt that it has become the “infrastructure” of more and more scenic spots. In Long Live Mountain, there are already 2,000 NPCs similar to “Wang Po”, and the number of NPCs in many scenic spots across the country is maintained in the hundreds.
Wang Xinwen, director of the Hengdian Film and Television City Performing Arts Creation Camp, told Minibus that in Hengdian Film and Television City, there were already NPC positions in 2016, but the overall upgrade has been carried out in the past two years and has become a highlight – the number of resident NPCs has reached nearly 400, and the number can reach 700 during holidays.
“The market demand is not as biased towards watching dramas as before. People want to experience immersion, high emotional value and interactivity.” Wang Xinwen said.
Scenic actor Huang Deyu works in the art town of Qinhuangdao, Hebei. According to him, his NPC team has dozens of people, and its annual investment has reached millions of yuan, including investment in labor, makeup, costumes, scripts, training management, etc.
“The scenic spot has buildings and scenes, but it lacks popularity and content.”Talking about the reasons for introducing NPCs in scenic spots, he said.
Even the natural scenic spots that seem to be beyond the reach of eight poles have been fully explored. Yunqiu Mountain in Linfen, Shanxi is a 5A-level scenic spot, focusing on mountain scenery. It has core resources such as ice caves that are more than 3 million years old and a thousand-year-old ancient village. The new goal is to create an “ancient Xianxia IP matrix”.
The first NPC it cooperated with was actor Zhang Hengrui, who has more than ten years of filming experience and once played the role of Cheng Jushu in the hit TV series “Celebrating More Than Years”.
In November last year, Zhang Hengrui publicly announced that he wanted to be an NPC because he had no scenes to film, which triggered a heated discussion on the Internet. At one time, more than ten scenic spots contacted him. Over 2 meters tall, he has been working as “Hou Yi” in Yunqiu Mountain for several months.
“There was no NPC profession before. We couldn’t compete with other scenic spots just by relying on scenery.”Zhang Hengrui analyzed the minibus.
In various scenic spots across the country, NPCs are vigorously packaged and grandly launched, looking like a new “star-making movement.”
According to Wang Xinwen, one of their key tasks is to support NPCs in creating personal self-media IP. The profits generated by self-media belong to the actors themselves. In Hengdian Film and Television City, there are more than 20 NPCs with more than 10,000 fans.
According to incomplete statistics from Minibus, there are active NPCs with more than 200,000 fans on Douyin, including Wang Po, Yudi Ge Ge, Snow Cake Monkey, Pica Chen, actors Shi Yuanting, Zheng Guolin, Li Taibai, Ruhua, Fang Xuanling, Du Fu, Northeast Peacock, Long Live Mountain Erniang Chenlu, Cui Yuanjing, General Jin Guo, etc. The industry leaders are quite impressive.
What does the value explosion of scenic NCPs depend on?
So, under the swarming industry situation, what does the success of a scenic NPC project depend on?
Based on front-line research, Minibus summarized three generally accepted views.
◎ First of all, behind the rise of NPC, the essence is that the era of tourists being the protagonists has come.
“The cultural tourism industry has gone from the era of checking in for sightseeing and watching dramas on-demand. Tourists want to pay for their own stories and emotions. They need to have a sense of participation and do not want to just be an audience.” Wang Xinwen said.
This means that actors need to participate in specific one-to-one interactions with tourists, including conversations, game playing, knowledge Q&A, on-site teaching, etc., thereby helping tourists produce picture materials and play stories.
For example, when Zhang Hengrui was filming in the past, a crew often had more than 100 people serving the actors. Nowadays, he needs to communicate and interact with hundreds of people alone every day. Sometimes he does not move for 30 minutes in a row and takes photos with tourists.
In the “acting interaction” session, he will give each tourist on stage a nickname that contrasts with the characteristics of the tourist’s image to liven up the atmosphere. Small gifts will also be given to tourists who have good acting skills or come from afar.
◎ Secondly, the popularity of NPC requires long-term co-creation between actors and scenic spots, both of which are indispensable.
On the one hand, actors generally have higher comprehensive ability requirements.
The NPCs in Hengdian Film and Television City mainly come from veteran actors from the scenic art troupe, short plays from the Actors Guild, special actors and extras, as well as college students recruited from the society, and people from the broadcasting, hosting, acrobatics, magic and other industries.
Wang Xinwen summarized the minibus that a mature NPC should also meet the following abilities: be able to interact with tourists around the clock; have an in-depth understanding of the characters and understand the story line of the characters; have the ability to control the scene and handle emergencies with high emotional intelligence; have an in-depth understanding of the scenic spot, and be familiar with basic knowledge such as safety and fire protection.
“First, you must be a social cow, but not crazy. You must be willing to talk to tourists, and you can catch what tourists say. Second, you must be emotionally stable and be able to maintain your character in the face of hundreds of tourists a day. Third, you must have your own skills. Fourth, you must be able to endure hardship. Stand for eight or nine hours a day, and you are not afraid of hoarseness in your voice or blisters on your feet.” Huang Deyu emphasized from the perspective of an actor.
On the other hand, it is a great test of the scenic spot’s front-line operational capabilities.
Hengdian Film and Television City’s approach is to seek feedback from tourists every day, both online and offline, to optimize the character design and gameplay. Offline, the directors and supervisors patrol the venue to see on-site interactive reactions, makeup, and conversational appeal. The interactions are optimized and the gameplay with low participation is cancelled. Online, the short video platform is used to read the videos and comment areas posted by tourists. Small problems are solved the next day, and major problems are reviewed in meetings.
◎ Third, NPC is an experience upgrade that can truly retain tourists by combining it with the optimization and upgrade of the scenic area’s infrastructure.
“The value of NPC is to extend the stay time of tourists. When the stay time is long, secondary consumption will increase.” Wang Xinwen explained the underlying logic of developing NPC projects.
In this regard, Long Live Mountain Martial Arts City is called “Pang Donglai in the scenic area” by many people. Specifically, a 100 yuan ticket can be used for three days without any other charges, and you can watch 3,000 large and small performing arts activities; the prices are affordable, and the prices of meals, snacks, and tea are on par with those outside the scenic area, or even cheaper.
According to disclosures: In 2025, the ticket revenue of Long live Mountain Martial Arts City will be 790 million yuan, accounting for 62.2%, a year-on-year increase of 127.2%; Commercial secondary consumption revenue was 480 million yuan, accounting for 37.8%, a year-on-year increase of 153.6%.
“Not only because of NPC, the scenic spot’s super cost-effectiveness and down-to-earth services are also the main reasons for the popularity of Long Live Mountain Martial Arts City.” Brother Dao, a senior observer in the cultural tourism industry, concluded about Minibus.
Long live mountain martial arts city staged night blacksmithing
Long-term issues: How to adapt to scenic spots, and the cooperation model between scenic spots and NPCs
Looking at the cultural and tourism industry, the market is still rising.
In 2025, the number of tourists will reach 6.522 billion, a year-on-year increase of 16.2%, and the total expenditure will be 6.3 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.5%; in the first half of 2026, the number of tourists will reach 3.463 billion, a year-on-year increase of 5.4%, with a total expenditure of 3.21 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2%.
However, per capita consumption and average income of scenic spots are both downgrading. For example, per capita consumption in 2025 will be approximately 966 yuan, a year-on-year decrease of approximately 5.7%; the average income of national A-level scenic spots will be approximately 32.63 million yuan, a decrease of more than 20% from 2019.
“Business in scenic spots is very hot now. Good scenic spots are crowded with people. But most scenic spots, especially in third- and fourth-tier cities, cannot collect tickets and cannot afford secondary consumption. Investors are anxious and operators have changed one after another.” Huang Deyu observed.
However, NPC in scenic spots is still a new thing, and the model needs to mature.
For example, judging from the scenic spots that have become popular by operating NPCs, block-type and venue-type scenic spots are the main ones, and the model is still single.
Generally speaking, block-type and venue-type scenic spots tend to lack entertainment content and naturally need to be filled. NPC has created a new content form. In natural landscape scenic spots, NPCs are prone to conflicts and the space is limited, and tourists are prone to fatigue due to long hours of climbing and hiking.
“Many natural landscape scenic spots, especially mountainous scenic spots, are not suitable for NPC and cannot produce results. It’s just that the explosive traffic diversion effect of NPC just fits the mentality of the project team to pursue quick results, so they followed the trend and did it.” Brother Dao said.
In addition, it seems unrealistic to blindly pursue the popularity of star-level NPCs such as Wang Po. She has been doing the “Mother-in-Law Matchmaking” program in Long Live Mountain for 6 years, earning a monthly salary of several thousand yuan. When the issue of marriage and love has become a social issue, it is quite accidental.
Therefore, his pragmatic idea is: NPCs should appear directly in consumption scenes, such as catering scenes, commercial scenes, amusement scenes, etc.; or they should be embedded in service scenes, that is, front-line staff become NPCs to enhance tourist experience and promote consumption.
NPC interacts with tourists in Hancheng Ancient City Scenic Area
For example, the long-term cooperation model between scenic spots and NPCs needs to be observed and improved.
In the industry, there are two main development models: scenic spots incubate NPCs from 0-1; introducing famous actors to play NPCs or well-known NPCs.
The former is the mainstream model. For general scenic spots, an NPC team of ten people will need a fixed salary of 700,000 to 800,000 yuan a year. In addition to equipment, props and venue construction, the cost of one million yuan is the basis for admission. For most scenic spots, it is not too low.
Specifically, according to Huang Deyu: “The monthly income range of top scenic spots and Internet celebrity NPCs is 15,000-50,000 yuan, mature NPCs are 8,000-15,000 yuan, full-time ordinary NPCs are generally 4,000-8,000 yuan, and part-time and newbie NPCs are 2,000-4,000 yuan.”
Once a well-known NPC is hatched, the scenic spot still needs to iterate the cooperation model or consider the issue of substitutability in a timely manner.
Datang Evernight City Pedestrian Street, interactive tumbler performance
Lose-lose cases are not uncommon: In October 2025, the “Dou Wu Granny Lu” who became popular in the Longevity Mountain Martial Arts City changed from a permanent actor to a guest actor, and then withdrew from the public eye. She had previously publicly accused extras of replacing her performance; in March, Pica Chen, the “roly-poly lady” who had worked in Datang Evernight City for seven years, chose to leave her job.
These two roles were replaced, but the popularity effect also disappeared at any time, which was a loss to the scenic spot and the actors.
From an actor’s perspective, providing enough room for growth, income, and promotion paths is the way to a long-term win-win situation.
小結
It is worth mentioning that tourism consumption has become a key non-rigid consumption among residents’ consumption.
For example, “Analysis of National Online Retail Market Development Trends from January to September 2026”: The share of tourism service e-commerce retail sales will increase from 4.7% in 2024 to 6.2%, with a year-on-year growth rate of 23.7%, which is higher than the 22.7% year-on-year growth rate in 2025.
Precisely because the total number of tourists is still rising, and overall consumption is still rising, even if there is fierce internal differentiation, innovative models continue to be innovative, and practitioners are full of passion, which is still worth looking forward to.
“When I chose to be an NPC in a scenic spot, I put down all my previous things.” Zhang Hengrui said.
“I’ve been owed wages, made things difficult, and thought about giving up. But every time I see tourists happy because of our performances and remembering this place because of my interactions, I feel it’s worth it.”Huang Deyu said.
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