Tongcheng Travel (00780) helped the “Soviet Super League” event, and the government and enterprises joined forces to launch a special series for fans in Suzhou

The Zhitong Finance App learned that at the turn of spring and summer 2025, two sports events stirred up ripples in the domestic mass tourism market. On one side is the “National Football League” of Jiangsu Province (“Super League” for short), which is popular all over the network with “competition first, friendship fourteenth”, etc.; on the other side is the more professional 2025 China Table Tennis Club Super League (hereinafter referred to as the “Ping Pong Super League”), which drives the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei tournament tourism boom with “national football traffic”.

The two major events may seem to have different paths, but they have the same path — through the deep integration of “sports+cultural tourism”, the vitality of the city's economy is revitalized, regional cultural identity is reshaped, and a new sample is provided to boost mass tourism consumption momentum.

The ball-mediated game economy extends from game stadiums to urban capillaries

From the Soviet Super League to the Ping Pong Super League, from big ball to small ball, Jiangsu and Hebei are playing a new way in the game economy using competitive sports as a medium. With the competition venue as the axis, the 3-kilometer radius became the core beneficiary area of the tournament economy. Hotels, restaurants, leisure and entertainment, and individual businesses operating around the event became the core beneficiaries of the tournament economy; famous scenic spots and museums in the city hosting the event, as well as taxis and online car-hailing businesses that connect the city's capillaries, are also beneficiaries of this “sports travel integration” feast.

From June 9 to 11, the first stage of the 2025 Table Tennis Super League was held at the Xiong'an Sports Center Stadium in Xiong'an New District, Hebei. Since this tournament brought together “famous table tennis players” such as Sun Yingsha, Wang Chuqin, Fan Zhendong, and Liang Jingkun, it attracted widespread attention from fans long before the tournament started.

In order to enhance the game viewing experience, Xiong'an New Area has not only opened 2 temporary bus lines to facilitate visitors to train stations, hotels, and game venues, but also set up 3 temporary parking lots around the stadium. At the South Square of the stadium, the “Ping Pong Supermarket Carnival”, which consists of more than 40 stalls, covers food, culture and creativity, intangible heritage, etc., and outdoor tents are set up to provide rest seats. The service continues for 14 hours every game day. A series of preparations for the tournament seemed to turn the bustling “Ping Pong Super Stadium” into a “city living room” to entertain visitors from all sides.

According to the “Hebei Daily” report, the competition held in Xiong'an New Area is expected to be watched live by about 40,000 people, and will attract more than 50,000 visitors during the event. Most of these viewers came from abroad, which not only directly boosted the box office of the Ping Pong Super League, but also fueled sales of products related to table tennis, as well as lodging, dining, and tourism in Xiong'an New Area.

According to data from Tongcheng Travel (00780), during the first stage of the 2025 Table Tennis Super League, there was a clear “change” in hotel reservation data in Xiong'an New Area. While the popularity of hotel reservations in other districts and counties in the province remained stable, the popularity of hotel reservations in Rongcheng County, Xiong'an New District, where the Xiong'an Sports Center Stadium is located, increased by more than 88% year-on-year, ranking among the highest in the county hotel market in Hebei Province. Meanwhile, the popularity of car reservations in Xiong'an New Area increased by more than 30% year over year. Furthermore, during the weekend before the competition began, the popularity of ticket reservations around Xiong'an New Area, including Yesanpo Scenic Area, Baili Gorge Scenic Area, Qingxiling, Baiyangdian Scenic Area, and Baishi Mountain Scenic Area doubled over the previous month.

The Ping Pong Super League not only boosts cultural tourism consumption in Xiong'an New Area, but also has a positive effect on cross-regional population movements and consumption growth between Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei. According to Tongcheng travel data, from June 9 to 11, the popularity of ticket reservations for popular railway lines from Beijing, Tianjin, and Shijiazhuang to Xiong'an increased by double digits over the same period last year.

Using the competition belt industry, government, and enterprises to join forces to turn event traffic into consumption retention

From the Guizhou “Village Super League”, which attracted widespread attention in football in 2023, to the Jiangsu “Super League”, which directly “exploded” in 2025, igniting the enthusiasm of fans in Jiangsu and the whole country, to the “Ping Pong Super League” that activates cross-regional mobility and consumption in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the construction of a consumer industry chain that “promotes travel through competition” and “brings production through competition” is being built at an accelerated pace and is becoming more mature. The relevant person in charge of Tongcheng Research Institute believes that under the joint impetus of government and enterprise efforts, IPing popular sports events, using sporting events shared by hosts and customers as links, creating a closed loop of industries that activate large-scale cultural tourism consumption in cities and regions, and changing traffic volume is becoming a major trend in the mass tourism market.

Although there are still doubts about the “Battle between South Korea and Georgia” in the “Soviet Super League”, after three rounds of competition, Jiangsu's “13 Taibao” have already revealed their “gold signs”, and the regional characteristics of a thousand cities and a thousand faces are fully reflected in “Jiangsu in bulk.” In less than a month, salted ducks from Nanjing, peaches from Wuxi, and crayfish from Huai'an have gone viral with their respective representative city teams.

Faced with huge traffic, the valuable experience of “integrated cultural, sports and tourism development” accumulated by Guizhou's “Village Super League” was actively utilized in the “Soviet Super League” stadium by Jiangsu's “Thirteen Taibao” students. A series of large consumer packages reflecting the “integrated development of cultural, sports and tourism” were “opened” in an orderly manner. During the Dragon Boat Festival holiday this year, Changzhou attracted more than 100,000 visitors to Yangzhou due to “free tickets for losing”. Huai'an launched a “100 yuan foodie fan carnival package”, and Taizhou offered “free tickets to scenic spots+special morning tea”.

On June 14, the fourth round of the “Su Super League” competition is about to begin. According to Tongcheng travel data, the popularity of hotel reservations around the six home city stadiums in this round all achieved a significant year-on-year increase. Among them, Huai'an grew 135%, Suqian grew 72%, Xuzhou grew 57%, Lianyungang grew 52%, Yangzhou grew 45%, and Wuxi grew 27%.

Since the launch of the “Su Chao” tournament, Tongcheng Travel has also integrated platform products and marketing resources to continuously provide quality services to “Su Chao” fans. Currently, if you search for “Su Chao” on the Tongcheng travel platform, you can participate in the special event “Watch Su Chao and Compete to Share One Million Miles”. On the special page of the event, in addition to the prize quiz, fans can also receive a free “fan exclusive privilege card” with a total value of more than 550 yuan, covering various fields such as hotels, scenic spots, transportation, food and drink.

Before the Lianyungang game against Suzhou began on June 15, the Suzhou Municipal Sports Bureau and Tongcheng Travel jointly launched the “Soviet Super League” Suzhou fan series. Fans only need to buy a special fan package to get round-trip high-speed rail tickets, game visiting team tickets, Lianyungang exclusive shuttle bus services, and a “fan package” including exclusive T-shirts, cheering scarves, drinking water, and Tongcheng Trip Black Whale Experience Cards.

Cao Shuai, CEO of the Tongcheng Travel Government Cooperation Department, said that at present, the company is closely communicating with the transportation, sports, culture and tourism departments of the Jiangsu provincial and municipal governments. Next, it will focus on the “Su Chao” theme, give full play to the advantages of Tongcheng Travel in terms of marketing, technology, and resource integration, and work with various levels of government, cultural tourism and consumer partners in Jiangsu Province to jointly undertake the huge traffic of “Su Chao” to fans and visitors from inside and outside the province. Strive to turn the “Soviet Super League” tournament traffic into consumption retention in the province.

When sporting events become a window showing the charm of a city, and when stadium stands become an entry point for cultural tourism consumption, sports transcend the scope of competition and evolve into a new engine driving economic development. Each high-quality case of “integrated development of cultural, sports and tourism” created by the government, enterprises, and the public is providing a richer room for imagination for upgrading China's cultural, sports and tourism industry and boosting consumption.