During the New Year's Day holiday in 2026, Dalian centered around the theme of "Winter Fairy Tale, Romantic Dalian", took innovative scenarios, diverse activities, and consumer benefits as the starting points, deepened the integration of culture, tourism, sports, and business, and presented a good situation featuring vibrant development, active consumption, and safety and order.
According to Ctrip statistics, the overall tourism order volume on New Year's Day alone increased by 56% year-on-year. According to the Tongcheng Travel platform, during the New Year's Day holiday, the order volume on all online platforms in Dalian increased by 52.43%, the number of visitors increased by 43.16% year-on-year, and the total tourism consumption increased by 23.86%.
The IP of "Romantic New Year's Eve Destination" has become a huge hit, inspiring the city's youthful vitality.
For this New Year's Eve event, Dalian centered around the theme of "Winter Fairy Tale, Romantic Dalian". Through the working mechanism of "coordinating resources, unified planning, unified management, and unified marketing", it fully mobilized the forces of the whole society, integrated market resources, and formed a working model of "government guidance, enterprise cohesion, and whole-society mobilization". It created more than 100 wonderful New Year's Eve events at over 20 locations, ranging from city-wide light shows to immersive experiences in characteristic streets, from cultural feasts in cultural and museum venues to music performances. It successfully shaped the city IP of "Romantic New Year's Eve Destination", attracting many young tourists from home and abroad to come to Dalian specifically.
At the event site, there were not only enthusiastic young tourists from all over the country, but also young people from Russia, South Korea, Europe, and the United States participating in this city-wide carnival. Chinese and foreign young faces gathered on New Year's Eve, jointly creating a lively, open, and international festival atmosphere.
To ensure the safety and order of the event, the whole city made early arrangements and conducted multiple scheduling and simulations to ensure smooth connections in all links. On New Year's Eve, multiple departments such as public security, transportation, and culture and tourism worked together, guarding the event from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. the next day, achieving "full-range protection and full-time coverage". Dalian's New Year's Eve event was reported and praised by the CCTV News Broadcast, significantly enhancing the city's brand influence.
According to statistics, during the New Year's Day holiday, various New Year's Eve events in the city attracted more than 1.67 million offline participants in total, and the online viewership exceeded 8 million. The IP of "Romantic New Year's Eve Destination" has successfully become a huge hit and has become a characteristic brand and an important attraction for Dalian's winter tourism.
New scenarios, new experiences, new consumption: Dalian offers you more new choices
During the New Year's Day holiday, the Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism planned in advance. Through city-wide linkage, multi-scenario integration, and multi-industry collaboration, dozens of theme activities across the city were strung together into a complete New Year's Eve experience. The bureau continuously enriched the activity content and optimized the experience details.
Ice and snow tours, hot spring tours, rural day trips, and cultural and museum tours remained popular. Five winter ice and snow theme routes, discounted packages for hot spring skiing, and consumption promotion measures such as full reduction offers by multiple financial institutions including UnionPay provided more choices and discounts for tourists. The innovative "Dalian Tourist Cards" in multiple price ranges of 99 yuan, 199 yuan, and 799 yuan, covering the entire chain and diverse consumption scenarios such as scenic spots, ice and snow activities, hot springs, dining, and accommodation, were well-received, with a cumulative sales volume of 35,000 cards.
All districts and counties in the city launched their own holiday theme activities. Zhongshan District held the "Hello, Dalian 2026" New Year's Eve event in Qingniwa-Tianjin Street; Xigang District hosted the "Magic Adventure-Dongguan Street New Year's Eve Carnival" and the "Happy Laughter" cross-talk show; Iceberg Wisdom Valley's Xiongdong Street in Shahekou District created a series of events called "Xiongdong Festival · Wonderful New Year Welcome Season"; Ganjingzi District Cultural Center launched the original a cappella rap work "Go Forward"; Lvshunkou District held the Tahewan Ice and Snow Carnival to welcome the Spring Festival on the snow; Pulandian District hosted the "Star of the Lotus City" New Year's Eve fireworks show; The ice and snow carnival in Zhuhua Street, Wafangdian, saw a peak of tourists; Zhuanghe held the themed event at Zhuanghe Xiangnian Ice and Snow World; Changhai County carried out the activity of "Paper-cutting to Celebrate the New Year, Two Sessions to Warm People's Hearts"; Jinpu New District's Golden Pebble Beach Happy Snow World innovatively launched the Pink "Strontium" Concert, with moving melodies paired with classic interactive programs, creating an audio-visual feast for tourists; High-tech Zone held a college hip-hop dance competition; Changxing Island hosted special activities such as a variety show and village lighting.
Inbound tourism is heating up. Come to Dalian to experience the romantic "Chinese Festival"
During the New Year's Day holiday, two chartered tour flights carrying Russian tourists arrived in Dalian as scheduled, becoming a striking sight in the coastal city in winter. South Korean tourists made a special trip to the coast, waiting for the first ray of dawn in 2026 to rise above the horizon, symbolizing a good start to the new year. Many tourists from Europe, America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East wandered through the streets of the city, joining the local New Year's Eve carnival and immersively feeling the enthusiasm and romance of this coastal city.
Among these tourists, there are both "return customers" who have visited many times and "new friends" who are full of curiosity about Dalian.
"This is already my second time in Dalian. Every time I discover new surprises," said Ivan, a tourist from Vladivostok, smiling at the New Year's Eve event. He came here by chartered flight with his family on purpose, hoping to count down to the new year with friends from all over the world under the bright lights of Dalian and welcome the new year amidst the sound of the waves. This unique romance can't be replaced by anywhere else. According to statistics, during the New Year's Day holiday, the number of inbound tourists received by the whole city increased by 45.37% year-on-year.
The city takes the lead in the province in full-area extended hours and offers high-quality and diverse experiences. During the New Year's Day holiday, all municipal museums in Dalian extended their opening hours until 7 p.m. uniformly, becoming the only city in the province where all municipal museums have extended opening hours. The extended hours are not simply "extended business hours," but are accompanied by carefully planned night-time theme activities, forming a complete service package of "extended hours + special content." The New Year's Eve special event launched by the Dalian Museum on the evening of December 31 attracted nearly 4,000 citizens and tourists in just three hours, enhancing the strong appeal of high-quality cultural supply at night. The Dalian Natural History Museum and the Dalian Wushu Culture Museum also simultaneously launched extended-hour activities with parent-child and traditional themes, meeting the diverse needs of audiences of different age groups.
Meanwhile, on January 1st, the new venue of the Lushun Phonograph Museum reopened after renovation, with a new exhibition set up in the cultural heritage building of Lushun Normal School. During the trial run of the renovation of the Han Tombs Museum, the first exhibition "Characters·Journey-An Exhibition on Excellent Traditional Chinese Cultural Education" was open to the public. The Dalian Art Gallery launched activities such as creative wax scraping paper experience, intangible cultural heritage woodblock printing experience for the Year of the Horse, lantern DIY, red envelope rubbing, and stamp-collecting card punching. The Dalian Museum of Culture and Art offered woodblock rubbing experiences, and the Dalian Urban Art Gallery held multiple characteristic aesthetic education activities like the "New Year Wishes" art interactive experience. The number of visitors received by cultural and art venues across the city increased significantly, with a cumulative total of nearly 60,000 tourists.
One "artistic" event after another showcases the city's "nighttime" vitality. During the New Year's Day holiday, nearly 20 performances, including concerts, Peking operas, and children's plays, were presented in professional theaters in Dalian, meeting the cultural needs of different groups. Starting the year with "art" is both stylish and interesting. There were New Year concerts such as "The New Year Concert of the Moscow State Classical Symphony Orchestra" and "The New Year Folk Concert of the Dalian Philharmonic Folk Orchestra", which convey the new atmosphere of the New Year and are very popular among citizens. There were also children's plays like "Bluey and Her Family", which are suitable for parents and children to spend a warm and educational artistic time together. There was the traditional Peking opera "The Auspicious Dragon and Phoenix", which is highly anticipated by opera fans and is a must-perform during festivals. There were also the humorous drama "Count of Wulong Mountain" loved by young people, the witty and hilarious stand-up comedy shows, and the energetic band performances.
The immersive environmental interactive drama "Old Tavern" in Dongguan Street was full on New Year's Eve. The New Year's Eve dumplings added a strong festive atmosphere. This performance broke the boundary between art and life and transported people back a hundred years, allowing citizens to feel the charm of culture through interactive experiences. The diverse and rich-content performances satisfied different tastes of the audience.
"Lianxiaolv" is on duty during the New Year's Day holiday, ensuring safety and warmth.
Before New Year's Day, the Office of the Leading Group for the Integrated Development of Culture, Sports, and Tourism of the city issued documents such as the "Notice on Doing a Good Job in Cultural and Tourism Work during the New Year's Day Holiday in 2026", requiring relevant units to strengthen the territorial management responsibility, departmental supervision responsibility, and the main responsibility of business operators in cultural and tourism safety production. During the holiday, the Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism formed 7 supervision teams to conduct safety production supervision and inspections in districts, counties, and directly-affiliated units. For the discovered problems and potential hazards, immediate rectification was required. On New Year's Eve, the cadres and employees of the city's cultural and tourism system went to the front-line of each event site to assist in emergency response, crowd evacuation, and volunteer services, making every out-of-town tourist feel the sincerity and warmth of Dalian's cultural and tourism industry.
During the holiday, law enforcement inspections of cultural and tourism business sites across the city were comprehensively strengthened. A total of 267 law enforcement personnel from the city and district levels were dispatched, inspecting 105 cultural and tourism business sites and conducting 376 online inspections. Four potential risks and hazards were promptly eliminated.
