Scenic spots "create stars", splurging tens of millions of yuan to compete for NPCs

During the Halloween period, major scenic spots have once again launched a fierce competition for NPCs.

Chengdu Happy Valley, which has gathered more than 400 NPCs, has set up 9 themed surprise houses and 7 film and television real-scene surprise cities in the scenic area. Even to match the festival atmosphere, it has extended its business hours to 12 o'clock at night. Chimelong Guangzhou divides the park into five themed spaces, with nearly 1,000 NPCs supporting 9 thriller mutation pavilions and grand night shows, pushing the Halloween atmosphere to a new height. Zhengzhou Fantawild has also launched the "Do Not Enter If You Are Timid" mode at night. The newly upgraded "Fantawild Monster Night" this year also invited thousands of NPCs...

Halloween Themed Event at Chimelong Paradise

A similar phenomenon does not only occur on Halloween. As the cultural tourism industry shifts from "resource competition" to "content competition", the scramble for NPCs by scenic spots has almost become a fixed "program" during holidays. The intervention of NPCs transforms the sightseeing tour of the scenic spot into an immersive real-scene, full-participation interactive instant experience. Being able to gather more popular NPCs means mastering more traffic codes that attract tourists.

Under this development trend, the demand for NPCs from scenic spots has gradually extended to an increasingly complete industrial chain, and a new type of "star-making movement" has begun.

Scenic spots spend tens of millions on recruiting staff

NPCs have become the largest source of emotional value for tourists

More and more scenic spots are betting on NPCs, because the traffic and performance brought by NPCs are already obvious.

At present, many scenic spots have already produced influential internet-famous NPCs. For example, Aunt Wang, who introduces partners to tourists at Wansui Mountain, has nearly 8 million fans on Douyin. Yan Dong, who plays Tang Seng at Changchun Zoological and Botanical Park, and Wang Tiezhu, the "Snow Cake Monkey", both have around 5 million fans.

Scene of Aunt Wang's Matchmaking at Wansui Mountain

Compared with the traditional promotion of scenic spots, the traffic driven by NPCs is mostly "organic traffic".

The reason is that NPCs provide the most scarce emotional value at the moment. Their existence turns the buildings that are "just good-looking" into a participatory real space, and the sightseeing of scenic spots becomes a large-scale "script murder" and "reality show". The characters they shape not only have a strong personal style, but also have the characteristics of illusory scenes. The immersive performance and flexible real-time interaction have gradually become the largest source of emotional value for tourists.

When interacting with NPCs becomes a fun thing during travel, sharing casually comes naturally. Most of the first-generation internet-famous NPCs became popular quickly because of short videos posted casually by tourists. For example, the popularity of the "Snow Cake Monkey" started when a tourist queued up to feed it a snow cake and it said: "No more, this stuff is too dry". This clip was posted online and became the starting point for many people to get to know the "Snow Cake Monkey". Up to now, on the Douyin platform alone, the total playback volume of topics related to #SnowCakeMonkey has approached 25 billion.

In addition, scenic spots also actively encourage NPC actors to operate self-media accounts. Even small internet celebrities with thousands or tens of thousands of fans form a huge traffic pool when gathered together. From a commercial perspective, such communication efficiency is extremely cost-effective, and the commercial conversion it brings is very considerable.

Public data shows that in 2023, Changchun Zoological and Botanical Park received less than 900,000 tourists throughout the year. After the "Snow Cake Monkey" became popular in 2024, the number quickly jumped to 1.85 million, and it approached 3 million in 2025.

Similarly, Wansui Mountain now has about 2,000 NPCs, and the interactive scenes developed from this have become the main factor attracting tourists. Correspondingly, the revenue of Wansui Mountain has risen sharply in recent years. In 2025, the number of tourists in the scenic spot reached 24.522 million, a year-on-year increase of 146.9%, and the revenue increased by about 15 times in three years.

The real performance reflects that people's travel needs have shifted from sightseeing to experience. Data from the "2026 National Day Holiday Travel Express" released by Fliggy shows that during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays this year, the number of bookings for scenic spot tickets with character interaction or immersive experience on the platform increased by 60% year-on-year. Consequently, more and more scenic spots have begun to scramble for NPCs.

According to incomplete statistics, since March this year, more than 50 scenic spots across the country have released NPC recruitment information. Among them, the Shandong Taishan Shigandang Scenic Area urgently recruited 500 NPCs at one go. Not long ago, Situ Ancient Town in Jincheng, Shanxi Province planned to spend 30 million yuan to recruit about 100 NPCs, and said that an annual salary of up to 10 million yuan could be negotiated. For a while, scenic spot NPCs have become more and more sought-after.

Actors and internet celebrities join in

The NPC "star-making chain" is gradually taking shape

Under the situation of supply falling short of demand in the market, some actors and internet celebrities have gradually joined in.

For example, actress Liu Xiaoqing, Zheng Guolin who played Li Shimin in *Heroes of Sui and Tang Dynasties*, Kou Zhenhai who played "Black Leopard" in *Romance in the Rain*, TVB actors Ma Jingtao and Li Guolin, etc., have all appeared as NPCs in many scenic spots. Many short drama actors have also "re-employed" in scenic spots after their film appointments decreased. In this process, scenic spot NPCs have gradually become a way out for actors' personal development, and the industry has currently explored three major modes: long-term resident performance, short-term guest performance during holidays, and tour schedule cooperation.

However, actors and internet celebrities mostly drive short-term traffic, which is difficult to fill the demand gap of scenic spots for NPCs. More importantly, NPCs are not just simple character COS, but in-depth immersive performances.

At present, scenic spot NPCs are mainly divided into two categories. One is to restore characters in films, television and animations. For example, in the *One Piece* themed area of Universal Studios Beijing, Sanji of the "Straw Hats" became popular because the actor performed the essence of the character, showing completely different attitudes towards female and male customers, and he is never out of character.

The other type is characters constructed based on the scenic spot scene and performance theme, represented by Wansui Mountain and Qingming Riverside Landscape Garden. This determines that scenic spot NPCs also need creative personnel such as directors and screenwriters, as well as customized character settings and scripts.

Especially in the process of industrialization, the path to popularity for NPCs has shifted from accidental explosion to professional team operation. For example, Wansui Mountain has more than 150 full-time creative personnel; while at Hetou Old Street Scenic Area, NPCs are assessed and graded every quarter, and the scenic spot's director team will continuously adjust character settings according to market feedback and actor characteristics.

With the professionalization of NPCs and the industrial development of the industry, the business model has also been improved simultaneously, and the salary levels of scenic spot NPCs have gradually been divided into relatively fixed tiers.

The annual salary of top internet-famous NPCs can reach millions or even tens of millions of yuan. If combined with the short video communication of their own IP, it may also bring additional income. For relatively fixed long-term resident NPCs, different salary levels of 5,000 yuan, 8,000 yuan, and over 10,000 yuan per month are distinguished according to proficiency and popularity. In addition, sky-high daily salaries are becoming more and more common among scenic spot NPCs, and the industry still has the popular daily salary calculation rule of "height × 10".

Along with this process, NPC incubation channels are becoming more and more mature. At present, a variety of modes have been developed, including spontaneous training by scenic spots, independent agents/agencies, performance outsourcing companies, and MCN institutions. The overall trend is gradually close to the entertainment star-making modes such as film and television, and variety shows. Even, scenic spot NPCs have become a springboard for some actors to develop their performing arts careers. For example, "Future Chronicle", a boy group under the MCN agency Dream Maker, has signed NPC actors from scenic spots such as Fantawild and Window of the World.

Exploring creation and operation

Completing more links of "star-making"

Under multiple favorable factors such as traffic, commercial prospects and personal development, the growth environment for scenic spot NPCs is becoming more and more complex. Especially at present, the more intensive "recruitment wars" among scenic spots are accelerating the deeper homogenization of scenic spots across the country. Many scenic spots only learn to set up scenic spot characters wearing corresponding costumes in fixed positions.

However, the simple "copy" of the model is often only superficial. The real attractive point of scenic spot NPCs lies in the sense of interaction and the sense of linkage with the scenic spot. The former corresponds to emotional value, and the latter determines whether tourists can be immersed, which is also the biggest difficulty in cultivating scenic spot NPCs. It requires actors to deeply understand the characters and continuously output high-intensity emotional value to tourists.

For example, at Hetou Old Street, Li Taibai could not recite many poems at first, and was often stumped by tourists' questions. But later, he began to study Li Bai and his poems, until he could respond to all tourists' questions with poems. He really became popular after he internalized the character of Li Bai. Following this trend, the scenic spot operation team quickly followed up to incubate more Tang Dynasty poets related to Li Bai: Du Fu, Gao Shi, Li Shangyin, Du Mu... Currently, Wang Wei is also being looked for.

In addition, after NPCs bring traffic, it is the overall experience and supporting services of the scenic spot that finally retain tourists. A typical example is Wansui Mountain. In 2025, the ticket repurchase rate of Wansui Mountain reached 47%, and the average tourist stay time was about 9 hours, which can hardly be attributed to the drive of a single NPC. More than 2,000 interactive performances in the scenic spot are based on a mandatory 30% elimination rate every year. What is also praised is that the prices inside and outside the scenic spot are almost the same, which is equivalent to exchanging word-of-mouth for tourists' second and third visits.

From this perspective, the professional exploration of "star-making" by scenic spots will probably move in two directions. One is that professional teams including brokerage companies and performance outsourcing companies may no longer focus on individual actors, but tend to build real-scene interactive theme theaters to incubate "packaged" NPC groups. Second, the demand gap of scenic spots for NPCs may further shift to the gap of creative talents. Talents who can build theme scenes and create scripts and NPC characters based on the characteristics of scenic spots will become more scarce resources.

The intuitive manifestation is that some scenic spots are no longer satisfied with copying similar NPCs, but go a step further and try to introduce experienced creative teams.

Up to now, the Wansui Mountain operation team has settled in scenic spots such as Huzhou Taihu Dragon Dream Paradise and Shandong Jining Liangshan Mountain. At the end of October, "Wansui Mountain (Changzhou) Spring and Autumn Paradise" and "Wansui Mountain (Changzhou) Taihu Bay Paradise" were officially unveiled, bringing the "Wansui Mountain Method" of immersive content creation + real-scene performance + on-site operation to Changzhou again.

For the development of the industry, the exploration around creation and operation will complete more links of "star-making" in scenic spots. During this year's Halloween, many scenic spots have introduced a large number of Chinese-style horror elements in the setting of theme scenes, which also promotes the deep integration of NPCs and scenic spots from the perspective of creation and content output. With further verification of the market, the "star-making" of scenic spots will precipitate a more complete path, and the imagination released therefrom will continue to expand.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Mirror Entertainment", written by Lizijiu, and published with authorization by 36Kr.