The 10th Beijing Cuisine Food and Culture Festival, a sub-event of the Beijing International Gourmet Festival, kicked off on Friday at the Longfusi commercial area, featuring food bazaars, cultural salons, brand livestreams and in-store discounts.
Beijing cuisine is emerging as a gastronomic calling card for the capital's cultural tourism sector. According to Meituan, a leading online food-delivery and local-services platform, search volume for Beijing cuisine in the capital hit 920 million between January and July, marking a 5.7 percent year-on-year increase. Searches by out-of-town users accounted for 37.3 percent of total volume, and tourists to Beijing generated 30.4 percent of transaction volume for Beijing cuisine.
The review descriptors "authentic" and "Beijing-flavored" appeared more than 55,000 times in consumer comments on Meituan, becoming the most prominent quality markers for Beijing cuisine.
Running until Aug 30, Longfu Building's indoor ground floor and outdoor plaza have been turned into a vibrant food hub, open daily from 4:30 pm to 10 pm. Over 70 brands and enterprises run booths serving specialties such as Huda Restaurant's crayfish pancake, and Quanjude's Peking duck wraps.
Visitors can browse and purchase intangible cultural heritage handicrafts such as dough figurines and cloisonne, with one-stop exposure to Beijing's classic tastes and fresh creative twists.
They can also take part in on-site voting to pick their favorite Beijing dishes, with the chance of winning prizes such as food vouchers and festival-themed souvenirs. Throughout the event, themed promotional campaigns for initiatives like regional cultural tourism and coffee culture will also take place.
A themed salon took place at Longfu Building on Friday afternoon, where over 40 industry leaders, chefs and cultural scholars held roundtable discussions over key issues such as how time-honored brands retain young consumers and the upholding of traditions and pursuit of innovation in Beijing cuisine.
Participants noted that driven by coordinated efforts among authorities, associations and businesses, Beijing's catering sector is deepening integration with culture, commerce, tourism, sports and exhibitions, upgrading food safety systems and talent training, and speeding up digital and intelligent transformation.
An official from the Beijing Cuisine Association said that the organization will join forces with catering enterprises, social institutions and online platforms to raise the global recognition of Beijing cuisine, and help food businesses expand their domestic and overseas markets through cross-industry initiatives with culture, commerce, tourism, sports and exhibitions.
