The 2026 CMG Spring Festival Gala has brought surging foot-traffic and revenue to its sub-venues during the nine-day Chinese New Year holiday, which concluded on Monday.
Since its first broadcast in 1983, the gala has been recognized as the most-watched annual television program on the planet, celebrating the most important holiday for the Chinese people.
The 2026 Gala had four sub-venues alongside its main venue in Beijing: Harbin City in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Yiwu City in east China's Zhejiang Province, Hefei City in east China's Anhui Province, and Yibin City in southwest China's Sichuan Province.
In recent years, such sub-venues have become an important window to showcase the images, cultural features and local customs of various cities, boosting tourism in these destinations by leveraging the broadcast's popularity.
In Yibin, the Gala has turned local landmarks into viral travel destinations. Hejiangmen Square and Yangtze River Park, featured prominently in the broadcast, have quickly become must-visit spots for holiday travelers.
"We saw the performance in the Yibin sub-venue on the Spring Festival Gala, so today I brought our family here to watch the drone show on site. It's absolutely spectacular," said tourist Zhang Jing.
The surge in visitors delivered record-breaking results for the city. During the holiday period, Yibin received over 9.5 million tourists, generating 6.2 billion yuan (about 900 million U.S. dollars) in tourism consumption, both hitting historic highs, according to the city's tourism bureau. Multiple scenic areas also saw single-day visitor numbers breaking previous records.
In Hefei, the sprawling Luogang Park, which staged performances for the gala, also held a grand carnival combining musical performances, cuisine and garden attractions.
During the holiday period, the park's foot traffic exceeded one million visitors, driving surrounding restaurant revenues up 20 to 50 percent year on year, while hotel bookings in the area doubled compared to the previous year. According to restaurants in the area, the number of diners has also swelled.
"We start work at 09:00 in the morning and don't leave until 22:30 at night. There's no time to rest at noon -- we're basically constantly preparing food, and our procurement also increased," said Liu Nana, manager of a restaurant at Luogang Park.
Spring Festival Gala boosts holiday economy in sub-venue cities
The United Arab Emirates' (UAE) exit from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the broader OPEC+ is unlikely to jolt oil markets in the short term, but sets the stage for lower prices once the Iran conflict ends and Gulf exports resume, experts said.
Effective Friday, the UAE formally withdrew from OPEC in a move poised to reshape global oil markets. The decision came amid heightened geopolitical tensions driven by the ongoing Iran conflict.
The UAE Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei said the timing was chosen to cause the least market disruption. But analysts say the exit reflects the UAE's long-simmering frustrations over production quotas that no longer align with its capacity.
"It gives the UAE flexibility to move from a quota within OPEC of 3.3 million barrels a day to 5 million barrels a day in 2027. It won't radically change the pricing. It will make more energy available. So, it will take some of the price pressures off," said John Defterios, senior advisor for APCO Worldwide, a global advisory firm, and also senior fellow at the Center for Energy and Materials of the World Economic Forum.
While immediate market impact remains muted amid wartime volatility, experts anticipate meaningful shifts once regional stability returns.
"It has no impact right now, because obviously oil prices right now depend on the state of the war and whether exports can start freely through the Gulf and so on. But assume, once the war is over and a normal transit resumes, I would expect the UAE will move quickly to increase production and try to refill some of that storage that was drained. And that should mean, in general, lower prices for oil importers, for oil consumers. In the longer term, yes, I think also probably it means lower prices," said Robin Mills, CEO of Qamar Energy, a Dubai-based independent consultancy company.
The UAE's departure highlights structural tensions within OPEC+. As a low-cost producer with billions invested in upstream expansion, Abu Dhabi increasingly chafed against collective quotas.
However, other members, including Iraq and Kazakhstan, also sought higher production allowances.
"This pressure has been building up for some time. But Saudi Arabia was also in a difficult position. If it agreed to grant higher production levels to the UAE, then it would have to grant them to Iraq as well. Kazakhstan wanted more [allowance as well]. Everybody wants special treatment," said Mills.
Strategically, the move aligns with the UAE's broader vision to diversify its economy.
"They made this announcement ahead of a very important forum, Make It In the Emirates, which displays what the UAE is doing in terms of diversification outside of oil and gas. So, they want that revenue from oil and gas -- the extra 50 billion dollars a year to go into greater diversification. It's advanced manufacturing, it's artificial intelligence, it's the next wave of financial services, and it is trade," said Defterios.
The exit also signals a broader recalibration of legacy energy institutions in a world confronting new climate imperatives, geopolitical fragmentation, and energy transition pressures.
"I do think it shows definitely a world in which there's a new energy reality, there's a new climate reality, there's a new geopolitical reality. And these legacy institutions have to adapt. And if they don't, then of course, their members will either leave or at least won't take them seriously," said Mills.
UAE's OPEC exit long expected, may ease oil prices after Iran war ends: experts
