During the National Day holiday, Qingming Shanghe Garden in Kaifeng was packed with visitors. A young woman wearing a Song dynasty-style jacket held a round fan and posed for photos, an NPC portraying Zhan Zhao carried a sword and chatted with children, street vendors called out their sesame cakes in imitation Song accents, and in the distance, the waterborne lights of "The Song Dynasty: A Dream of Dongjing" were lighting up one by one. No one would stop to think that behind this scene, which feels like stepping back into the Northern Song era, lies a business that raked in 2.16 billion yuan over three years, as well as a capital marathon that has been in preparation for a full 18 years.
Earlier this year, Kaifeng Qingming Shanghe Garden Co., Ltd. formally filed an application with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for a main board listing, with China Merchants Securities International acting as sole sponsor. This 5A-level scenic spot, which began with an ancient painting, has gone through the long detours of listing on the New Third Board and A-share listing tutoring, and has finally arrived at the door of the international capital market.
One Painting, One City
On the map of China's theme parks, Qingming Shanghe Garden has always been an outlier. When the industry was betting on Western IP, it plunged into the Bianjing of a thousand years ago. Following Zhang Zeduan's painting, it built one-to-one replicas of ancient architecture, found actors to dress as ancients, and moved Song dynasty street life straight into reality. When it opened in 1998, few were optimistic about this park with almost no amusement rides, and many thought it would amount to little more than a large film studio.
The real turning point came in 2008. The large-scale live performance "The Song Dynasty: A Dream of Dongjing" officially premiered, directly transforming Qingming Shanghe Garden from a half-day sightseeing spot into a day-and-night resort destination. Industry insiders have calculated that the price of a performance ticket matched the scenic spot admission ticket, directly doubling the average spending per visitor; more importantly, it extended the average length of stay and helped boost surrounding dining and accommodation. In recent years, Henan's culture and tourism sector has gone viral nationwide, and this traditionally perceived central plains province suddenly found the right way to present traditional culture. Historical resources dormant for a thousand years were, for the first time, converted on a large scale into a wave of consumption, and Qingming Shanghe Garden is the most mature commercial product in that wave.
It has figured out the psychology of contemporary tourists: what people want is not to "see scenery," but to "become part of the story." As a result, the park pushed performance density to the extreme. On weekdays there are more than 400 regular performances and over 280 NPC interactions per day, with even more on holidays. From morning to night, Lord Bao welcomes guests, Yue Fei spears Little King Liang, and the Battle to Defend Dongjing unfolds, so wherever you walk, a story is happening. This immersive approach translates directly into real money. According to the prospectus, "The Song Dynasty: A Dream of Dongjing" generated 120 million yuan in revenue in 2025, accounting for 16.1% of total revenue, making it the second-largest income source after tickets. Based on 2025 box office figures compiled by China Insights Consultancy, this performance ranks second among all live performances nationwide, behind only the Impression series. In a sense, it proves one thing: Chinese people are willing to pay for their own traditional culture, and they are willing to pay a high price.
Eighteen Years on the Road to Listing
Many people do not know that Qingming Shanghe Garden's IPO dream has lasted 18 years. As early as 2008, the Kaifeng municipal government's work report explicitly proposed for the first time to "do a good job in the equity reform and listing work of Qingming Shanghe Garden." Yet the road afterward was full of twists and turns. It listed on the New Third Board in 2016, becoming Henan's first listed scenic spot company, but delisted in a hurry two years later, citing "strategic development needs." In 2020 it officially began A-share listing tutoring, which lasted six years and ultimately failed to achieve its goal, so it switched to Hong Kong stocks.
Eighteen years of grinding out one sword, from the New Third Board to A-shares and then to Hong Kong stocks, reflects not only the company's own detours but also the broader capitalization dilemma of the entire cultural tourism industry. In the past two years, leading local scenic spots flocking to Hong Kong for listings has become an industry phenomenon. While Qingming Shanghe Garden filed with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Slender West Lake Cultural Tourism had just passed the Hong Kong Stock Exchange hearing. Why are they all abandoning A-shares and rushing to Hong Kong? The reasons are very realistic: A-shares place extremely high requirements on cultural tourism companies' earnings sustainability, compliance, and asset attributes, while scenic spot companies generally suffer from natural shortcomings such as large visitor fluctuations, heavy assets, and numerous compliance flaws, making the listing channel increasingly narrow. Hong Kong is relatively more accommodating, and combined with strong push from local governments, it has naturally become the common choice of many regional cultural tourism leaders.
For Kaifeng, Qingming Shanghe Garden's IPO is a battle it cannot afford to lose. As the city's only 5A-level scenic spot, it is not only a city calling card but also an important vehicle for local state-owned assets to revitalize assets. The prospectus shows that Kaifeng State-owned Group holds 49%, while private enterprise Henan Zhengqin Group holds 51%. This mixed-ownership structure of "state capital building the stage and private enterprise putting on the show" ensures both resource support and market vitality. Precisely for this reason, the listing carries local expectations far beyond the company itself.
Behind the Prosperity
But under the spotlight of the capital market, there is not only applause. Opening the prospectus reveals that behind the bustling traffic is a series of hidden concerns worth deeper examination. The most glaring is the awkward reality of rising revenue without rising profit. From 2023 to 2025, revenue rose from 673 million yuan to 746 million yuan, a three-year increase of 10.8%, which looks steady. But net profit during the same period fell from 285 million yuan to 212 million yuan, a decline of more than 25%. Where did the money go? The prospectus explains that labor costs climbed, marketing investment increased, and programs continued to be upgraded. Unlike the mechanized amusement facilities of Disney and Universal Studios, Qingming Shanghe Garden follows a labor-intensive route. Hundreds of performers and more than a thousand service staff, with rolling rehearsals of hundreds of performances every day, are rigid costs. The higher the visitor flow, the greater the investment needed in manpower, operations, and program renewal. This model naturally has a profit ceiling: you can push visitor numbers into the tens of millions, but it is very hard to bring marginal costs down.
An even more fundamental problem than falling profit is the highly concentrated revenue structure. During the reporting period, admission tickets plus tickets for "The Song Dynasty: A Dream of Dongjing" consistently accounted for more than 83% of total revenue, while dining, hotels, cultural creative products, and management output combined accounted for less than 20%. This star scenic spot, which appears to have rich business formats and diverse experiences, is essentially still a ticket-selling business. So-called immersive cultural tourism is ultimately converted into a premium on ticket prices. A more subtle risk lies in the copyright of the core IP. Many people do not know that the copyright of Qingming Shanghe Garden's signature brand "The Song Dynasty: A Dream of Dongjing" does not fully belong to the company itself. The prospectus clearly discloses that this performance was developed in 2007 in cooperation with Yangshuo Shuaiyuan Technology, and the two parties jointly own all copyrights except the right of authorship and the right of modification. The actual controller of Yangshuo Shuaiyuan is Mei Shuaiyuan, founder of China's live performance industry. This means that for this flagship product, which contributes nearly 20% of revenue and a gross margin of more than 70%, the company does not have full control. Future content upgrades, adaptations and derivatives, and external licensing all require the partner's consent. For a company built on cultural IP, this is tantamount to having its core competitiveness in someone else's hands.
The most controversial issue in the market is the pre-IPO clearing-style dividend. Over the three-year reporting period, Qingming Shanghe Garden's cumulative net profit was 775 million yuan, but cumulative cash dividends reached 804 million yuan, paying out more than it earned. Dividends are a shareholder right and there is nothing wrong with that in itself. But what is odd is that while distributing cash generously and emptying out the cash balance, the company also wants to raise funds through a listing for expansion, which is somewhat thought-provoking. The direct consequence is a sharp deterioration in liquidity. As of the end of 2025, monetary funds on the books were less than 40 million yuan, net current liabilities were as high as 353 million yuan, and the current ratio was only 0.1 times. More notably, the company has more than 500 million yuan in secured borrowings, and the pledged asset is not real estate or land, but the "right to collect ticket sales revenue of the park," equivalent to pawning future ticket income in advance. A company with annual profit of 200 million yuan has less than 40 million yuan in cash on its books and still needs to borrow money for expansion. The money has been distributed, and then it comes to the capital market to raise funds. That calculation is indeed shrewd.
Henan Cultural Tourism's Ambition
That said, even with all these problems, Qingming Shanghe Garden's sprint toward an IPO is still a landmark event for Henan's cultural tourism. For a long time, Henan's cultural tourism industry was like begging while holding a golden bowl. China's eight great ancient capitals include four in Henan, and its historical and cultural resources rank among the best in the country, yet tourism revenue and influence have always ranked in the lower-middle range. When outsiders mention Henan, they think of Shaolin Temple and Longmen Grottoes, all legacies left by ancestors, with no benchmark project under market-oriented operation.
In recent years, the situation has changed completely. Luoyang broke out with Hanfu and peonies, Kaifeng secured its position with the twin stars of Song culture, and Anyang, Jiaozuo, and Xinyang each have their own approaches. Henan's cultural tourism has shifted from resource-driven to operation-driven, and the turn has been very fast. Qingming Shanghe Garden is a representative of this transition period. It is not a natural heritage site or a cultural relic, but a purely man-made scenic spot that relies on product design, content operation, and market promotion. Its ability to rank fourth nationwide proves the commercialization potential of central plains culture and also proves that Henan's cultural tourism enterprises can do market-oriented operation well.
But listing is only the beginning, not the end. The prospectus says the proceeds will be used to expand the park, create new indoor performances, upgrade existing projects, and expand the management output business. The direction is right: expansion increases carrying capacity, new performances enrich the product line, and management output attempts an asset-light approach, but every step is difficult. Xi'an's Grand Tang Mall does not charge admission, but it boosted the entire city's Hanfu industry, dining and accommodation, and commercial consumption. Hangzhou's West Lake is open for free, and in return the entire city's tourism revenue grew exponentially. Truly top-tier cultural tourism projects do not earn ticket money; they earn the spillover value of urban industry. Qingming Shanghe Garden now has annual revenue of more than 700 million yuan, which sounds like a lot, but for the city of Kaifeng, its value goes far beyond that. It has boosted surrounding hotels, dining, and transportation and driven the entire Song culture industry chain, and these spillover values far exceed the scenic spot's own profits. Yet for now, these values cannot be packed into the listed company's financial statements.
More than 900 years ago, Zhang Zeduan painted the street life of Bianjing in the Northern Song dynasty, depicting ordinary people's lives and the prosperity of the era. More than 900 years later, today's operators have restored that lively atmosphere into reality, allowing us, a thousand years later, to walk in and be a Song dynasty person for a day. This painting has traveled through nearly a thousand years, witnessing the prosperity of the Bian River and also experiencing the rise and fall of dynasties. Bianjing in the painting is bustling, but the business outside the painting is not easy. The scroll is long, and the road is long too. As for how this IPO ultimately turns out, we may as well wait and see.