Zhangjiajie's net profit surged by 1026% in the first half of the year! Is Dayong Ancient City gaining strong momentum?

On August 17, the listed company Zhangjiajie released its 2026 semi-annual report, recording revenue of 212 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.34%; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies reached 308 million yuan, skyrocketing 1026.8% year on year. This profit level ranks among the top tier among cultural tourism listed companies.

Why did Zhangjiajie's performance surge suddenly? The core factor is the Dayong Ancient City project under Zhangjiajie. In the first half of the year, Zhangjiajie Dayong Ancient City Development Co., Ltd., the investment entity of Dayong Ancient City, contributed 298 million yuan of attributable net profit, accounting for 96% of the total net profit.

Previously, Dayong Ancient City was a famous domestic "ghost town" of cultural tourism, with an investment of more than 2 billion yuan but very few tourists. In 2026, Dayong Ancient City went through bankruptcy restructuring, with Hunan TV & Broadcast Intermediary, Mango Cultural Tourism and other parties participating in the restructuring. The original Dayong Ancient City, which was a closed scenic spot with tickets centered on tourism performance, was transformed into an open cultural tourism scenic area featuring film and variety shows, live streaming bases and offline fan gatherings, and was renamed Fantastic Dayong City.

At present, Fantastic Dayong City has been open for more than a month. According to the project leader, it has received nearly 1 million tourists. The shop occupancy rate of Fantastic Dayong City has also increased significantly. It is reported that the occupancy rate of shops on the first floor reaches 100%, and that of the second floor is between 85% and 95%.

With surging performance, nearly one million passenger flows in a month, and full shop occupancy, so many positive signals, is Dayong Ancient City really revived? Can Dayong Ancient City be regarded as a typical successful case of reconstruction and turnaround for Chinese cultural tourism ancient towns?

In fact, it is far from the time to draw a conclusion. Whether Dayong Ancient City is truly revived can not be judged until at least half a year later.

First of all, the surge in performance does not come from the operation level. In the first half of the year, Zhangjiajie's revenue was only 212 million yuan, while the attributable net profit was as high as 308 million yuan. The revenue is even lower than the net profit, which is completely caused by the accounting rules at the financial level. Dayong Ancient City officially began restructuring and equity reform at the end of 2025. During this process, a large number of debts were written down or converted into equity, and these debts that were written off became the company's profits at the accounting level. Rough estimates show that during the entire restructuring process, Zhangjiajie had about 1.1 billion yuan of debts reduced or converted into equity. These are the core factors driving the sharp surge of Zhangjiajie's performance.

Excluding the impact of the restructuring of Dayong Ancient City, Zhangjiajie's performance in the first half of the year was moderate, with its core revenue coming from the scenic area environmental protection passenger transport vehicles, Yangjiajie Cableway and Baofeng Lake Scenic Area. Benefiting from the growth of passenger flow in Zhangjiajie Wulingyuan Scenic Area, the revenue of environmental protection passenger transport vehicles reached 80.03 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23.84%; the revenue of Yangjiajie Cableway was 34.3 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.2%; the revenue of Baofeng Lake Scenic Area was 21.35 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.2%.

In the first half of the year, Dayong Ancient City was still under renovation and construction and was not open to the public, generating only 1.9 million yuan of revenue, mainly from parking fees.

Second, after the opening of a cultural tourism project, there is a "fresh period" when the passenger flow in the first few months is usually not bad. Opening a scenic spot is just like opening a restaurant. In the first few days of opening, surrounding tourists are willing to come to experience it and see what it is like. The new Dayong Ancient City adopts a free admission mode, has made sufficient publicity budget in the initial stage of opening, held music festivals, concerts, and had the support of Mango's IPs and celebrities, so it is easy to attract a wave of tourists who come for fun.

Dayong Youth Mango Music Festival

However, after the freshness fades, tourists' feedback and their willingness to revisit the scenic spot determine the success or failure of the project.

As for the high occupancy rate of shops, it is also easy to achieve. Merchants come to make money, and the operator can always gather a group of merchants as long as the rent is lowered to a sufficiently low level. It is reported that the new Dayong Ancient City adopts a co-creation model for investment attraction. The so-called co-creation model means no rent or extremely low rent, and the lessor draws a percentage from the merchant's revenue, or even from the merchant's profit, to prioritize ensuring that merchants can make profits.

In fact, many large shopping malls and commercial centers established in recent years are adopting the co-creation model, which essentially stems from the fact that there are too many malls and insufficient passenger flow. If the mall operators do not adopt this model, they cannot attract merchants at all. In short, using subsidy policies to fill the shops first, so that there are various catering and entertainment services for customers after they arrive.

Third, the current traffic of the new Dayong Ancient City is unstable, which relies on the promotion of various activities.

At present, the new Dayong Ancient City has been open for a full month, which is a great improvement compared with the old closed toll cultural tourism snack street mode. But on the whole, it still lacks core attractive amusement content. In this month, 80% of the nearly one million passenger flow of the new Dayong Ancient City is night-time passenger flow. On the one hand, Dayong Ancient City has held many music festivals and concerts in succession, with live broadcast support from Hunan TV, Mango TV and other platforms, attracting many tourists and citizens who come to watch the fun; on the other hand, there are lights and landscapes at night, making the night tour more charming.

However, relying too much on these celebrity variety shows, music festivals and concerts has the risk of putting the cart before the horse for cultural tourism projects. Whether tourists come to travel and experience the project itself, or come for the festival activities and celebrity variety shows, is completely different for a scenic spot.

For example, Nianhuawan in Wuxi and Nvzhou Island in Shangrao are both ticket-charging scenic spots, with no celebrity variety show resources. They have been operating well for many years after opening, with a steady stream of tourists. Tourists will not refuse to visit these scenic spots just because they charge tickets, nor will they dislike that these scenic spots do not have celebrities, variety shows, music festivals or concerts. Tourists come purely for sightseeing, and they like the experience, scene design and rich and fun content here.

As for Fantastic Dayong City, cooperating with Hunan TV & Broadcast Intermediary, Mango Cultural Tourism and Mango Super Media can bring more exposure to Dayong Ancient City and inject more celebrity and variety show resources. But if all tourists come for these elements, it means that the scenic spot itself has no attraction and cannot impress people. The scenic spot will simply become a supporting venue for celebrity variety shows and music festivals. Once the activities stop and the freshness of opening fades, it will continue to become an empty shell.

Dayong Hello Saturday Street

On the whole, after one month of opening, Fantastic Dayong City has good passenger flow and its publicity momentum has been built up. But the scenic spot has not yet crossed the hidden life-and-death line for cultural tourism projects. When the hustle and bustle of the opening fades away, whether there are still tourists willing to pay for your scenes, content and gameplay is the key issue that Fantastic Dayong City needs to focus on solving in the next six months. This problem cannot be solved by the Mango system's celebrity variety shows or IP traffic. Problems at the cultural tourism level ultimately need to be solved by the logic of cultural tourism.

(Image source: Official new media accounts of relevant companies)

This article is from the WeChat official account "Zhiku Cultural Tourism", written by Wu Moyan, and authorized for release by 36Kr.