Financial Services Association, May 28 (Reporter Cui Ming) As cultural consumption continues to heat up, Oriental Pearl (600637.SH)'s business development in the field of cultural tourism has received major attention from investors. Company executives said at the performance conference held this afternoon that the two cultural real estate projects, Oriental Intelligent Media City and Oriental Pearl Digital Film and Television Production Base, are expected to be completed around the end of this year. The company will innovate and explore cultural tourism and short dramas to inject more entertainment content into cultural tourism resources and drive traffic and consumption monetization.

According to reports, Oriental Intelligent Media City is positioned to build a national-level online audiovisual industry base that deeply integrates culture and technology, culture and consumption, while the Oriental Pearl Digital Film and Television Base is positioned to create a new highland for film and television cultural content creation.

As early as 2021, the Oriental Intelligent Media City project was launched, and it has been in the works for more than 3 years. The project is jointly invested, developed and operated by Oriental Pearl and Shanghai Lingang (600848.SH). It is the first batch of projects to be stored in the National Cultural Industry Development Project Bank of the CPC Propaganda Department.

According to the plan, Oriental Intelligent Media City is located at the core of the Pujiang International Science and Technology City. The project covers an area of about 400 acres. It will be built in three phases, all of which are planned to be completed during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. After mature operation, the park can achieve a large-scale output value of 20 billion yuan. The first phase of the project began on October 18, 2021, and the main structure was capped in June last year.

According to Liu Xiaofeng, vice chairman and president of Oriental Pearl, the first phase of the Oriental Intelligent Media City project is expected to be completed and put into operation from the end of 2024 to the beginning of 2025, and the investment promotion process is currently proceeding normally according to the plan. The Oriental Pearl Digital Film and Television Base invested and developed by the company is expected to be completed by the end of 2024.

In the past two years, using digital and interpretative means to create immersive and interactive experiences has become a new model for the development of the offline travel industry. The Oriental Pearl Digital Film and Television Base, which came into being, will establish a closed ecological loop from “film and television tour” content collection and operation to “film and television tour” cultural tourism professional services and consumption.

However, Oriental Pearl's current core revenue source is still the Wenguang sector. Last year, the company's smart radio and television business revenue was 5.2 billion yuan, an increase of 7.95% over the previous year. A high-margin “potential stock” — the cultural consumption business had revenue of 2.4 billion yuan last year, up 61.74% year on year (lower base in 2022), of which the cultural tourism business contributed 1.4 billion yuan in revenue, up 214.8% year on year.

“Can cultural tourism take a large part in the development after the Pearl of the Orient?” In response to investors' questions, Jin Xiaoming, chief accountant of Oriental Pearl, said that the company will continue to focus on smart radio, television, and cultural consumption business. Among them, in terms of cultural consumption, the cultural tourism business is an important component. The company will seize industry development opportunities, continue to improve quality and efficiency, give full play to resource advantages, use digital technology to shape new scenarios and new ways of playing, and link with IP to inject more entertainment content into cultural tourism resources and drive traffic and consumption monetization.

Liu Xiaofeng also mentioned that the company will continue to explore the layout of the skit business, expand production and operation work, promote collaboration between cultural tourism and short dramas, and innovate and explore the “short drama +” multi-scene model.