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The duet of city super IP and first-class enterprises

Tsingtao Brewery continues to deepen its core beer business, optimize the "beer +" industry ecosystem, and expand its unique advantages as the "Beer Capital of China"

The annual Qingdao International Beer Festival has come to an end, but the gathering experience created by Qingdao Beer remains hot.

"CityDrink" connects the streets and alleys of "China's Beer Capital"; hundreds of Qingdao Beer Festivals are still being held from north to south across the country; more than 200 TSINGTAO1903 Qingdao Beer Bars have started the weekend beer festival mode, allowing consumers to enjoy N flavors in one stop...

Tsingtao Brewery has become a city landmark.

If a city is compared to a large and organic organism, then enterprises are the vital economic cells in this organism. Tsingtao Beer uses more diverse products and richer scenarios, and its international influence connecting billions of consumers around the world to magnify the unique advantages of "China's Beer Capital" and perform a "duet" between the city's super IP and a first-class enterprise.

Create a super IP

In Qingdao, the interactive upgrade between the beer industry and lifestyle can be traced back to 33 years ago.

In 1991, thousands of citizens experienced the charm of Qingdao International Beer Festival for the first time in Zhongshan Park. This festival, which later became famous both at home and abroad, was originated from Tsingtao Beer. In a sense, the beer festival can be regarded as the beginning of Tsingtao Beer's promotion of efficient integration of manufacturing and service industries. Before 1991, there were calls for Qingdao to hold a beer festival, but it was not realized due to problems such as insufficient beer supply. It was not until the commissioning of Tsingtao Beer Plant No. 2 that year that the city's beer production doubled, which laid the material foundation for holding the beer festival.

Over the past 33 years, the booming beer industry has continuously consolidated and shaped the city's beer culture and festivals, creating a super IP for the city. At the 31st Qingdao International Beer Festival held three years ago, Qingdao was awarded the title of "China's Beer Capital". In a recent report, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung commented: "The Qingdao Beer Festival is comparable to the Munich Oktoberfest."

Today, beer is no longer a rare commodity that is in short supply. From mainstream products such as Classic 1903, Pure Draft, and All-Wheat White Beer, to featured new products such as Boutique Pure Draft, Crystal Pure Draft, August, Pilsner, Dark Beer, IPA, and Fruit Beer, as well as innovative breakthroughs such as Legend of a Lifetime, Centennial Journey, and Amber Lager, distinctive and personalized products have given consumers more choices. Today, the places to drink beer are not limited to beer tents and restaurants. From No. 56 Dengzhou Road to the Time Coast Craft Beer Garden and even the TSINGTAO1903 Qingdao Beer Bar in the streets and alleys, you can have a "CityDrink" at any time. Today's Qingdao Beer Festival has expanded from a passionate carnival in one city to the linkage of more than 60 cities across the country. Even Kenya and Uruguay on the "Belt and Road" have staged the classic scene of "Qingdao Cheers to the World"...

All of this is inseparable from Tsingtao Beer. On July 24 this year, the passenger throughput of Qingdao Airport exceeded 90,000 for the first time, reaching a new level of passenger volume. Many people flocked to Qingdao from all directions just for a cup of Tsingtao Beer.

Create a better life

Behind the increasingly important role played by Tsingtao Beer in urban development are more profound changes - from brewing good beer to creating a better life.

In the past, Tsingtao Beer gave people the inherent impression of being a manufacturing company; but now, it is a platform-based, ecological enterprise integrating three major sectors of happiness, health and fashion and a smart supply chain. On the basis of deepening its main beer business, it has grown into bars, hotels, homestays, bakeries and other business formats, bringing a full-area, all-time immersive experience.

The most typical example is the Tsingtao Beer Museum. In 2003, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Tsingtao Beer, the Tsingtao Beer Museum, which records the development history of China's beer industry, opened. In the past 21 years, this "China Travel" check-in spot for overseas tourists has attracted Chinese and foreign guests from more than 100 countries and regions, receiving a total of 12.67 million tourists, including 1.6 million tourists in 2023, with overseas tourists accounting for 12%.

At present, this new business model is still evolving - from Qingdao Beer's special foods such as beer beans, beer bread, and beer ice cream, to fashionable IP cultural and creative products such as beer cats and wine ducks, opening up more new experience and purchase scenarios; the newly created new night play scene "Golden Wonderful Night" has created a successful case of innovative night tour operations in Chinese museums... Not long ago, Qingdao Beer Museum, as the only corporate brand museum, was selected into the "Top 100 National Museums (Exhibitions) with Overseas Influence" together with the Palace Museum, the National Museum of China, etc.

In addition to the museum, more new formats of Tsingtao Beer are growing rapidly, breaking through the limitations of time and space, and helping the city's cultural tourism industry to "prosper all year round". The TSINGTAO1903 Tsingtao Beer Bar that goes deep into the community, the Xianju Laoshan B&B that magnifies the mountain and sea B&B experience, the Time Coast Craft Beer Garden project that creates China's first beer-themed coastal resort hotel, and the Liyuan 1903 Tsingtao Pub MIX and Zhongshan Road No. 1 Legend Club that carry the city's memory and historical culture have formed a set of "food, accommodation, travel, shopping and entertainment" system with unique beer characteristics.

Nowadays, playing in the Qingdao Beer Museum, eating at TSINGTAO1903 Qingdao Beer Bar, and staying at the Time Coast Craft Beer Garden Hotel have become the check-in routes for many tourists. In their eyes, Qingdao Beer is not just a glass of beer, but also represents the city life of Qingdao.

Leaping up the industrial level

There are many cities in the world that produce beer, but when it comes to the beer company that has the greatest impact on the city, there is probably no one that can compare with Tsingtao Beer. It is named after the city of Qingdao and is part of the daily lives of countless people; it leads the gathering of the beer industry and pushes Qingdao to become the world's number one beer city in terms of industrial scale; it is deeply engraved in Qingdao's cultural genes and strengthens the city's international influence while going global.

In fact, the beer industry has a much wider and deeper impact on the city's economy than one might imagine. On the consumer side, beer is a very mature fast-moving consumer product and the most consumed alcoholic beverage in the world. This year's Qingdao International Beer Festival alone received 6.36 million visitors, who consumed more than 2,800 tons of beer, driving a significant increase in the flow of tourists to restaurants, hotels, and scenic spots. On the industrial chain side, it covers raw material planting, packaging materials, brewing, logistics and transportation, and circulation and sales, making significant contributions to increasing employment and boosting tax revenue.

The report "Beer's Global Economic Footprint" released by the Oxford Economics Institute shows that if the industrial chain factors are taken into account, one in every 110 jobs in the world is directly or indirectly related to the beer industry.

As a "chain leader" enterprise, Tsingtao Brewery has continued to deepen its core beer business in recent years, optimize the "beer +" industry ecosystem, and shift from meeting demand to creating demand, helping Qingdao demonstrate its characteristics globally.

In March this year, the Tsingtao Beer high-end specialty beer production base project with an annual output of 1 million kiloliters started construction in Laoshan District. The project integrates multiple business formats such as "high-end specialty beer, fashionable bars, and cultural tourism". After completion, it will become a world-class high-end, intelligent, and green production base and cultural tourism experience base. This is a key move for Tsingtao Beer to create a new benchmark for green intelligent manufacturing and accelerate the innovative development of the "integration of the two industries" under the trend of personalized and scenario-based beer consumption.

Tsingtao Beer has many landmark projects like this, including the Tsingtao Beer Technology R&D Center project, the 1.2 million kiloliters Smart Industrial Park expansion project, the 250,000-ton high-end malt raw material base expansion project, the 1 million kiloliters pure draft expansion project, etc. Their outstanding feature is the integration of manufacturing and services, which promotes the optimization and upgrading of the industrial structure and significantly enhances the comprehensive driving force for the urban economy.

With the closer connection and interaction between enterprises and cities, the city's business card of "China's Beer Capital" will shine even brighter. (Qingdao Daily/Guanhai News reporter Zhou Xiaofeng)