Barbecue craze in China's Zibo: Can street vendors provide push to the economy?

A little-known industrial city in China is now a tourist hot spot. Zibo, located in the eastern Shandong province, has been attracting tourists from across the country for its cheap barbecue. This tourism boom has enveloped the city in recent months following the Asian giant scrapping its stringent zero-COVID policy. But why has Zibo become so popular among tourists suddenly and what does this barbecue craze says about China’s economy? Let’s find out. ‘China’s outdoor barbecue capital’ Zibo, which was once known for its petrochemical output, is now a social media sensation and among China’s most popular tourist spots because of its open-air barbecue stalls. As per reports, this famed barbecue involves small chunks of marinated meat and vegetable skewered and grilled over charcoal.

A barbecued skewer of mutton costs about 2 yuan (Rs 24) in Zibo.

There are over 1,270 barbecue joints in the city, BBC reported citing the president of Zibo’s Barbecue Association. The city was thrown into the spotlight after videos of college students enjoying the affordable local barbecue went viral over the last two months, as per China Daily. [caption id=“attachment_12609272” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] There are more than 1,270 barbecue joints in Zibo. AFP[/caption] It has become so popular that “Zibo barbecue” has been a trending topic on Chinese social media platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Weibo since March, reported BBC. In March, the city, with a local population of 4.7 million people, was flooded by 4.8 million visitors, as per Business Insider. According to Chinese news website Caixin, a record 87,000 train trips to and from Zibo Railway Station were reported on 29 April. During the Golden Week holiday in May first week, Zibo accounted for one of China’s highest hotel room occupancy rates, reported BBC. This barbecue frenzy has resulted in long queues, swamped hotels, and the setting up of makeshift dining halls to accommodate the crowds. Local banks have started offering low-interest “barbecue loans” to business owners to help them to grow, noted The Globe and Mail. A native of Zibo city told chinanews.com in April how he could not find seats in four different restaurants when he returned to his hometown. “A barbecue restaurant owner I know told me to come back on Monday, so as to leave the weekends to out-of-town visitors. Another restaurant owner told me that they had run out of meat. I’ve been eating barbecue for over 20 years and this is the first time I’ve heard something like that,” the man was quoted as saying by China Daily. Steven Cao, a 33-year-old real estate agent from the small city of Weihai, who travelled for over six hours to Zibo with his parents to try the barbecue during the five-day May Day holiday was told by people working at a barbecue stand near the hotel he was staying in that they stopped giving queue tickets earlier and there were still “at least 50 to 60 people lined up”, reported The Globe and Mail. Reasons for the frenzy It is not just affordable food. A barbecue seller who has been operating a shop for many years in the city’s Linzi district told The Economist newspaper that “anyone can sell chuan’r” – as the dish is known locally. “It is Shandong’s big-hearted hospitality that people across the country are seeking out in Zibo,” according to the newspaper. “Local people are very hospitable and honest to strangers, which I think is a main reason [why the city is so hot],” Jiang Yaru, a Zibo local who currently works in Shanghai told CNN. “This is a novel experience for many visitors because other tourist cities might not have treated them well.”

A unique way of eating #barbecue has been attracting people across #China to visit #Zibo, an industrial city in #Shandong province. In this city, people roll the #skewers in a small pancake with scallions and seasonings. Some #tourists refer the style as the “Chinese BBQ taco.” pic.twitter.com/eKO2MmZu2p

— Panda Paws (@Panda_Paws_) May 1, 2023

The other reason for the sudden craze, spurred by influencers, that has made Zibo “China’s outdoor barbecue capital” is new consumption trends. As per The Economist, since the country abandoned the zero-COVID policy , young people have adopted the trend of “special forces” travel, where they go to a place and spend little time and money before moving on to the next destination. Too much fire? The influx of travellers seems to have overwhelmed Zibo. Officials from Zibo’s Culture and Tourism Bureau had put out a letter in late April urging people to avoid the city during the May Day holiday. “The Zibo barbecue ‘fire’ has gone out of hand. We have been doing our best to accommodate the recent influx of tourists, but it has caused trouble and inconvenience to everyone,” they wrote, according to BBC. The letter also highlighted that the recent surge in tourists has caused “some troubles and inconveniences” to visitors, as per the Business Insider report. [caption id=“attachment_12609302” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] “Zibo barbecue” has emerged as a trending topic on Chinese social media sites. AFP[/caption] Hotel bookings saw an 800 per cent surge this Golden Week holiday as compared to 2019, local authorities in Zibo told state news agency Xinhua, the report added. A video taken on 27 April went viral on Weibo showing a barbecue restaurant owner on his knees, apologising profusely to a customer as the queue to get into his restaurant was too long, reported the Hong Kong-based newspaper South China Morning Post (SCMP). Will this Zibo barbecue love help the economy? Zibo reported 4.7 per cent increase in GDP for the first quarter, which, as per CNN, was uplifted by retail, tourism and dining. The same period saw an 11 per cent rise in consumption, the report added. However, according to SCMP, the barbecue frenzy shows how some “types of affordable consumer goods tend to do better in an economic downturn”, known as the “lipstick effect” in economics. Following Zibo’s success, the “street vendor economy” has made a comeback in many Chinese cities to bolster the economy and increase employment, as per CNN.  While small businesses have benefited from China softening its stance on street vendors with several cities even encouraging unemployed youth to set up open-air stalls, it has not done much for the national economy, as per reports. China ’s total social retail sales were at 5.8 per cent in the first quarter, just a slight uptick from the previous year when the country was under rigid COVID-19 restrictions, noted SCMP.

As per the Hong Kong-based newspaper, three years of strict COVID curbs have undercut the spending power of many Chinese households.

“Increased uncertainty has hit China’s urban middle class amid salary reductions and job cuts in various sectors, from technology to financial services. Spending by young people, China’s most active consumer demographic, has been affected by unemployment, with one out of five persons in this group jobless,” Zhou Xin, SCMP’s Tech Editor, wrote in an article. As per the data recently released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the urban unemployment rate between the 16-24 age group touched a record-high of 20.4 per cent in April. “The Zibo phenomenon is a combination of FOMO [fear of missing out] amongst Chinese municipalities and top-down pressure from the [Communist Party] to address unemployment and youth angst,” Alex Capri, senior lecturer at NUS Business School, was quoted as saying by CNN. Amid the Chinese economy’s many challenges and high unemployment among urban youngsters, the state media has also started calling on jobless youth to become street vendors by publishing stories of young business owners becoming rich through operating stalls in the night markets. “It does look like the Chinese leadership cannot find better ways to create employment and thus maintain stability and order than encouraging young people to be street vendors,” Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the SOAS University of London, told CNN. “For workers or graduates with skills for the digital era, taking on street vending is a sign of desperation rather than creative thinking.” Tsang added that the “informal trade might reduce unemployment temporarily, and give people feeling poorer a boost, but it won’t save China’s economy”. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.