In diversified travel strategies, as an important travel destination and transition, some “new landmarks” in Kunming have been recommended and approved repeatedly, like the Dounan Flower Trade Market, the historic districts situated on Kunming’s old streets, and Park 1903. Those new landmarks symbolize Kunming’s history and culture, its modern development, showing a fashionable, modern and substantial, and profound Kunming from its unique charm.

The Dounan Flower Trade Market is noisy and boisterous when the night grows blacker. With online and offline orders for flowers coming, merchants are busy packaging the flowers and delivering them to couriers, which will be received by customers the next day, at the earliest.

It is a new direction that is being taken in Kunming’s travel strategies: “buying flowers in Dounan tonight”. Since the first gladiolus had been planted in Dounan Township in 1983, the “career of beauty” began, in which various flowers and people were busy day and night. Therefore, it has become a landmark in China, and even in the flower world in Asia.

What represents the unique charm associated with this industry? Seven out of ten flowers in China come from the Dounan Township. It was at the top in China for 24 years in a row, in terms of having the highest annual trading volume, cash flow, visitors, amount of exports, and also the only flower exchange market in the world with 4 trading modes that are e-commerce, auction, electronic consolidated settlement, and direct trade.

At present, the Dounan Township has established a flower township combining “intelligence” with “gorgeousness”. You can check the scenic routes and introductions in the APP “Go- Yunnan”, which is also capable of certain features such as “face scanning”, “HD live streaming” and “intelligent parking”.

Currently, the Dounan Flower Township has improved its attraction and popularity by implementing various means of wisdom to continuously promote itself as the top township suitable for living, business, and travel in China, with flowers as the central feature.

Yunnan Provincial Museum

Hanging on the streets of Kunming, every historic site contains its lingering charm and every natural scene comes from a story. As one of the first batch of 24 famous historic and cultural cities published by China, Kunming has kept digging into its connotation of history and culture, its connection with national culture, cultivating an urban cultural ethos, and leveraging its respective strengths of possessing abundant resources in regards to history and culture. It has mainly built a range of cultural brands which live up to Kunming’s historical context and ethos and has improved its brand attractiveness as a famous historic and cultural city, to create a strong engine for the integrative development of culture, business, and tourism.

In recent years, according to the working plan of improving its brand attractiveness as a famous historic and cultural city, Kunming’s Culture and Tourism Bureau made efforts to establish a cluster of special museums combined with the rational utilization of historical and cultural relics, featuring modern Kunming cultural events, cultural celebrities, new marketplaces and ecology, special industries, and traditional commerce and trade in Yunnan. In 2019, the cluster of museums for modern and contemporary history in the Green Lake Area has been implemented, which forged 4 classic travel routes: sightseeing historic sites surrounding the Green Lake, exploring historic streets in Kunming, retrospection at the Southwest Associated University, and reviewing the revolutionary course of Yunnan. The Green Lake Cluster of Museums has been formed using the above routes.

Old Streets in Kunming's Historic Street Area

The old Streets in Kunming’s historic street area were founded in 1,119, about 900 years ago. It is the only largest historic street area with most residential buildings and shops with characteristics of the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China periods, located in the center of Kunming.

During the night, while walking into Kunming’s old streets, tourists in the Yunnan Museum of Tea Culture and Tea Courtyard are sitting around, drinking the mellow Pu'er tea. In the street across from the Confucian Temple, various fireworks hang over it, and various Yunnan snacks are ready for tasting by tourists… Kunming’s old streets have become good places to experience Kunming’s nightlife.

Kunming’s old streets start from the east of Zhengyi Road and end to the west of Shifu Western Street, Yunrui Eastern Road. Additionally, they also start from the south of Jingxing Street and end to the north of Middle Renmin Road and the Confucian Temple, which covers an area of about 200 mu. Some historical buildings and ruins of former residences of famous people like “King Qian” Wang Chi, Ma Family’s Courtyard, and Nie er's former residence now shine their new vitality and have become folk streets that reflect the historic culture and historical changes after the planning and renovation of streets and protection and repair of ancient buildings. On February 11th, Yunnan’s Culture and Tourism Department published the first list of nightlife culture and tourism consumption cluster areas at the provincial level, in which Kunming’s old streets were selected as one of the 4 projects in Kunming and the project was approved.

Talking about the new landmarks of Kunming, Park 1903 would be recommended by local people. It is a park that will consume your whole day. There are stores of all sizes, a bustling crowd of people, and various exhibitions. Its specific evaluation on some fashion-sharing platforms states that it is a “good place for eating and playing”.

Epicures that love delicious foods can always find what suits their taste. The contemporary art museum named CGK on the “Arch of Triumph” holds high-quality art exhibitions all year round, making art lovers linger. Parents will take their children to play here during the weekend because these “mythical creatures” can abandon themselves in large-scale amusement parks both in-door and out-door. The old take a walk on the lakeside and enjoy the music fountain and light show…Everyone can find his or her interest in Park 1903.

But for the people in Kunming, Park 1903 is not only a commercial street, but a “combination of art, commerce and culture”, and resembles a “deep integration of buildings and natural beauty”. With the upgrade and segmentation for consumption, the pedestrian street Park 1903 was not only a block for shopping, but couldn’t retain consumers with its “all streets and stores form”. Therefore, the space model of “block and beauty” has been established and a new type of trade of “consumption of a scene” has become a new way of earning money.

According to the relevant principal of the operator of Park 1903, Kunming’s Guanjiang Group Co. LTD, the building volume of the pedestrian street Park 1903 is 280,000 square meters, which adopted a layout of open commercial space in the “form of a park”. What’s more, this block integrated 8 types of trade dynamically, including travel and holiday, culture and art, recreation and living, fashion trends, globally delicious foods, cultural and creative fairs, family entertainment, and life experiences.

The commercial buildings that had a low flow density were activated as a space for unlimited consumption possibilities by the operator, relying on the design of “moving lines” and an increasingly completed commercial layout. In addition, what is noteworthy is that the operator did not distinguish consumers by age, but focused on their lifestyles, so that its types of trade are tailored to meet their needs, continually extending the boundary of consumer groups that are served by the pedestrian street.

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(Editors: Rachel, Christine)