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On April 18, the launch ceremony of iQiyi Paradise Kaifeng project was held in Kaifeng, Henan. Gao Jianjun, Secretary of the Kaifeng Municipal Committee; Zhang Songwen, Member of the Standing Committee of the Kaifeng Municipal Committee and Secretary-General of the Municipal Committee; Xiao Wenxing, Deputy Mayor of Kaifeng; Gong Yu, Founder and CEO of iQiyi; Zhang Hang, Senior Vice President of iQiyi; Guo Jingyu, famous screenwriter, director, producer, founder and chairman of Changxin Media; Liu Kai, chairman of Kaifeng Cultural Tourism Investment Group Co., Ltd.; and Zhou Huan Yu, founder and chairman of Yu Yi Investment, attended the launch ceremony and announced the official launch of iQiyi Paradise in Kaifeng.

This is the second iQiyi offline paradise project launched after the iQiyi Paradise Yangzhou project. It is understood that, In this cooperation, iQiyi plans to develop the entire area in three phases. Phase one will see the establishment of iQiyi Paradise in Zone A and the southern part of Zone C of the 960 Wenchuang Park; Phase two plans to build a characteristic themed hotel in Zone B of the 960 Wenchuang Park; and Phase three will focus on the land around the former Provincial Museum site to build a national tide commercial street area. Upon completion, it will create a new landmark of cultural and tourism integration in the core cultural area of Kaifeng ancient city.

The core park area plans to cover seven interactive entertainment sections: a full-sense theater, a holographic light and shadow space, an immersive performing arts theater, film and television scene interaction, NPC interactive experience, party time MR experience, and themed activities. Compared with the common problems of large investment scale, long return cycle, insufficient content interactivity, high actor costs, and high iteration costs in traditional theme parks, iQiyi's offline paradise project has proposed a different "solution": the two iQiyi paradises launched in Yangzhou and Kaifeng are both characterized by the full-sense experience integrating Chinese film and television IPs and cutting-edge digital technology, constructing a new immersive entertainment experience space centered on film and television themed IP experiences. As early as 2017, iQiyi began to innovate in content and engineering around offline immersive interactive experience scenarios, and successively launched several widely popular full-sense theater projects such as "Wind from Luoyang," "Tang Dynasty Ghost Stories: Western Journey," and "Love Between Fairy and Devil." Currently, the full-sense theater has covered more than 20 cities and more than 40 stores, and more new IP full-sense theaters will be included in the core experience projects of iQiyi Paradise in the future.

Zhang Songwen, member of the Standing Committee of the Kaifeng Municipal Committee and Secretary-General of the Municipal Committee, said in his speech that the Kaifeng Wen Tou Group will launch the iQiyi Paradise project in the 960 Wenchuang Park area next to the "Six Dynasties Palace" ruins, aiming to transform the area into a comprehensive park integrating entertainment, leisure, and cultural experiences, creating another new landmark of cultural and tourism integration.

Gong Yu, founder and CEO of iQiyi, said in his speech that as a technology company that has always adhered to technological innovation and original content-driven development, iQiyi has been continuously investing in IP development and virtual shooting in recent years, and has been actively exploring in VR content, offline immersive entertainment, and theme parks. Through online and offline linkage, iQiyi hopes to allow more viewers to become part of the content, deeply participate in the world of film and television IPs through offline scenarios, and complete the transformation from "viewers" to "experiencers" and even "co-creators." He pointed out that Kaifeng not only has a history of more than 4,000 years of city building, but also nearly 600 years of history as the capital, giving birth to the "Song culture" that inherits the Han and Tang dynasties and opens up the Ming and Qing dynasties. The establishment of iQiyi Paradise in the ancient city of Kaifeng will combine the trendy elements and cutting-edge technology favored by today's young people with traditional cultures such as Song culture and Yellow River culture, hoping to allow more people to know and love Kaifeng.

According to a set of data mentioned in the "In-depth Study of the Current Situation and Development Trend Analysis Report of China's Theme Park Industry (2025-2032)", as of September 2023, the market penetration rate of China's theme park market is only 27%, while the average level in developed markets is as high as 68%. It is expected that the market size will exceed 90 billion yuan by the end of 2025. Relying on past content development experience, technological accumulation, and rich reserves of national creative IPs, iQiyi will continue to cooperate with local cultural and tourism industries offline to create immersive entertainment experiences centered on "national creative IP + technology," injecting new vitality and impetus into the high-quality development of the cultural and tourism industry.