“Park+” Model Unlocks New Leisure Experiences and Immersive Consumption in Beijing

What can you encounter in a park in spring? Over the past weekend, major parks in Beijing were bustling with activity: outdoor sports fields, reading salons filled with the fragrance of books, and cultural tourism promotion stages. The “Park+” model is constantly unlocking new urban leisure experiences and creating immersive consumption scenarios, breathing new vitality into the city’s green spaces.

China Daily reported that Beijing has been vigorously promoting the integration of parks with culture, sports, tourism and consumption in recent years, turning urban green spaces into multi-functional public venues that meet citizens’ diverse needs for leisure and entertainment.

In the early morning, the Summer Palace was shrouded in light mist, with Kunming Lake rippling gently, willow branches brushing the dyke, and spring in the air. Early on Saturday, the 2026 Zhipao Haidian · Enjoy the Three Hills and Five Gardens — Yihe Jingming Health Run kicked off here. The race focused on joy rather than speed, with laughter echoing along the 7.5-kilometer route from Bafang Pavilion to Xiuyi Bridge, via the West Gate and back to the Gengzhi Tu Scenic Area.

“The Three Hills and Five Gardens are unique historical and cultural treasures of Haidian, an important carrier of Chinese garden art and the cultural context of the ancient capital,” said Guo Bin, President of Haidian Marathon Association. “Bringing health runs into the Summer Palace integrates national fitness, cultural inheritance and cultural tourism, an innovative practice to activate cultural heritage and tell the story of Haidian well.”

The health run also boosted the “number bib economy”. The number bibs collaborated with business districts such as Zhongguancun Darong City and Longfor Starjoy City, converting sports traffic into consumption growth through exclusive services and diverse discounts.

At 9 a.m. the same day, the 2026 THE COLOR RUN Beijing Station was held in the blooming Garden Expo Park. With rich activities including collective powder throwing, thousand-people disco, wooden man challenge and wave challenge, young people were willing to pay more than 200 yuan for the registration fee to participate in this “happiest 5-kilometer run”. The event also set the race pack collection point at Dongyue Temple Cultural Square west of Chaowai THE BOX, allowing participants to collect their packs and shop conveniently.

The century-old railway tracks in Jingzhang Railway Ruins Park were transformed into a “scholarly living room”. The “Hometown of Books · Beijing Eight Universities” national reading activity, hosted by Xueyuan Road Sub-district of Haidian District, was held here. Nine nearby universities and four research institutes brought academic resources from behind the walls to the park, offering citizens and tourists a scholarly spring journey. Peking University Health Science Center exhibited a special exhibition on Tu Youyou’s Nobel Prize, including original manuscripts and experimental instruments, showing the research path from “Zhouhou Beiji Fang” to artemisinin.

In the evening, a breeze from “Chilechuan” blew through Haidian Park, where a series of Hohhot Urban Nadam activities were held, inviting Beijing citizens to take a high-speed rail trip to the grassland city on weekends. Intangible cultural heritage skills such as leather craftsmanship, medicinal fragrance and Mongolian inlay, authentic delicacies like sheep offal and milk tea, and flash mob performances of grassland culture and sports such as “Song of Igor” and wrestling made people feel as if they had stepped from the urban lawn into the vast grassland.

As night fell, the parks remained lively, with cultural consumption, sports consumption, cultural tourism consumption and market consumption connected here. More and more green spaces have transformed from “leisure places” to “vitality venues”, demonstrating the new formats and vitality of consumption in Beijing.