Ningbo attractions rise in fame as hit TV drama debuts

Ningbo Museum in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo/WeChat account: nbfb0574]

A livestream to showcase some Ningbo landmarks that were featured in the hit TV series The Three-Body Problem garnered 200,000 views recently.

The livestream, which was aired on platforms such as Ningbo Evening News and Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, took audiences on a tour of places including Ningbo Museum and Laiwaitan that appeared in the TV drama, which became an instant hit after premiering on Tencent Video on Jan 15.

The featured places have become wildly popular following the show's debut.

Ningbo Museum, for example, received roughly 50,000 visitors during the seven-day Spring Festival holiday, which ended on Jan 27, up a whopping 220 percent year-on-year. Even after the holiday, the museum still welcomes an average of 2,000 to 3,000 tourists per day, which is close to pre-pandemic levels.

Laowaitan, or the Old Bund, which is known for its cobbled streets and bustling bars and restaurants, has also seen a marked increase in visitors. Official data show that more than 50 movies and TV shows have been filmed at Laowaitan since 2017.

The Three-Body Problem was produced based on the renowned Chinese science fiction novel of the same title by Liu Cixin. The book is the first in the author's Hugo award-winning trilogy about humanity's first contact with an extraterrestrial civilization.

The popularity level of the show on Tencent Video reached 25,000 within an hour after it was launched, making it the fastest TV series to reach the 20,000 mark on the platform, stated the drama's official account on Sino Weibo.

The final episode of the show was aired on the evening of Feb 14.