'Chicken steak brother' turns small city into instant hit

Expertly flipping over the chicken steak in the hot wok, 48-year-old street vendor Li Junyong, who has been nicknamed "chicken steak brother", has shot to fame and become a signature attraction in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province.

His humorous interactions with tourists, such as, "You can refuse me, but not my chicken steak" and, "You deserve everything beautiful in the world, including my chicken steak", turned the city into a trending destination over the just-finished Mid-Autumn and National Day holiday.

The popularity of Li and his street stand has helped to boost the growth of tourism in Jingdezhen, a city renowned for its ceramic and porcelain products.

Figures from Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, showed that bookings related to Jingdezhen had surged nearly 70 percent on the platform in the first three days of the eight-day holiday — from Oct 1 to Wednesday.

Sales of group purchases of glass-blowing experience and pottery-making tours in the city registered year-on-year growth of 74 percent and 71 percent, respectively, on the platform during the three days.

Travel portal Qunar also proved the sales power of "chicken steak brother". Figures on Oct 1, the first day of the holiday, showed that the occupancy rate of Jingdezhen's hotels grew 30 percent compared with the same period last year.

David Reid, an Australian artist, said in a recent video after visiting Li's chicken steak stand: "This is 5 stars. … It's that thing of going when you love something, you want to make it the very best you ever do, and as artists we do that all the time."

It's not the first time that small cities have become an instant hit during public holidays, such as Zibo in Shandong province, which went viral among tourists because of the city's delicious barbecue, as more Chinese travelers have shown an increasing interest in exploring niche destinations in order to avoid huge crowds of people.

A report from Qunar said that small cities, especially those with distinctive cuisines, nature and culture, were popular during the National Day holiday. It said that over the eight-day vacation, its users had booked hotels in more than 2,000 county-level destinations nationwide, with the most popular counties including Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan province, Yangshuo in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, and Pingtan in Fujian province.

"China's domestic tourism market is in diversified development, with both metropolises like Beijing and Xi'an in Shaanxi province and small cities or counties booming during public holidays," said Wei Changren, founder of btiii.com, a tourism-related financial news website.

Noting the great momentum of Jingdezhen and "chicken steak brother" during the holiday, Wei said that the instant online hit will definitely propel the growth of the local tourism market, while it's necessary for the local authorities to seize the opportunity to improve their tourism products and services to turn the short-lived traffic into sustainable tourism growth.