Yibin – September 16, 2026 -- A new season of the China Media Group travel reality show "Travel China with the Spring Festival Gala" is currently airing, spotlighting Yibin as its second featured city after Yiwu.
The show turns entire cities into game boards for cultural exploration
The program uses live-action competitive games and immersive cultural exploration to convert a city's geography, heritage and modern development into variety entertainment, using Spring Festival Gala branch venue cities as its map. The first episode covered Yiwu, framing it as the "world's supermarket" through cross-cultural interaction segments that drew strong audience response.
Yibin's episode blends tea, liquor and bamboo with new energy industry
Billed as "the first city on the Yangtze River," Yibin's segment weaves together three local cultural staples -- tea, liquor and bamboo -- with contemporary themes including new energy and ecological governance. The city itself becomes the set, with cast members navigating locations tied to Yibin's smart manufacturing sector, including power battery production.
Producers say the format is designed to let viewers absorb the region's cultural lineage through tea and liquor traditions while also showing the industrial push behind battery manufacturing, folding both into a lighthearted variety format.
The format shifts from one-way city promotion to two-way audience engagement
Built on the Spring Festival Gala IP, the series frames its approach as replacing standard city-introduction segments with interactive, co-created content. Producers indicate additional city stops are planned in upcoming episodes.