An Exploration of the Upgrade Path for the Tongzhou Grand Canal International Consumption Zone under the Orientation of Youth Consumption ()
1. Introduction
Against the backdrop of continuous upgrading of domestic consumption structures and the transformation of the cultural tourism industry towards quality, youth-orientation, and digitalization, the state has consistently introduced policies encouraging the expansion and quality improvement of cultural tourism consumption. These policies promote the deep integration of multiple sectors such as commerce, tourism, culture, sports, and health, supporting the implementation of new consumption scenarios like immersive experiences, night-time economies, and digital cultural tourism. In the process of accelerating the cultivation and construction of an international consumption center city, Beijing has designated the Tongzhou Grand Canal International Consumption Zone as a key development area, aiming to leverage the synergy between Grand Canal culture and the Universal Beijing Resort IP to form a nationally influential growth pole for cultural tourism consumption.
Currently, the youth demographic (aged 18 - 35) has become the most dynamic, trendsetting, and influential group in the consumer market. This group places greater emphasis on cultural identity, experiential quality, social value, and personalized expression. Their acceptance of traditional sightseeing tourism is decreasing, while their demand for immersive, interactive, trendy, and participatory cultural tourism products is rising. For the Tongzhou Grand Canal International Consumption Zone, understanding, attracting, and serving this youth group has become crucial for achieving sustainable development and enhancing core competitiveness.
Realistically, although the consumption zone has made significant progress in hardware facilities, commercial spaces, and landscape improvements, there are still notable deficiencies in content supply, scene creation, digital operations, and youth participation mechanisms. A gap exists between the current offerings and the actual needs of youth consumers. Based on this, this paper takes youth consumption demands as its starting point, conducts a systematic study on the development path of the Grand Canal International Consumption Zone, and proposes feasible, scalable, and replicable innovative solutions. This aims to provide a reference for project optimization and offer lessons for the rejuvenation of similar canal-culture-based consumption zones.
2. Research Background and Significance
In recent years, the state has placed high importance on the upgrading of the cultural tourism industry, successively issuing multiple policies to support the expansion and quality improvement of cultural tourism consumption, encourage the development of new cultural tourism formats, and facilitate the effective connection between cultural resources and modern consumption demands. Beijing has also launched a series of supportive measures focusing on the digital economy and the construction of an international consumption center city, creating a favorable policy environment for the innovative development of cultural tourism projects. The Tongzhou Grand Canal International Consumption Zone possesses multiple advantages in terms of policy support, resource endowment, and geographical location. It boasts the millennium-old historical and cultural resources of the Grand Canal and can also benefit from the large influx of young visitors attracted by Universal Beijing Resort, indicating enormous development potential.
However, in its efforts to attract the youth market, the consumption zone has also exposed a series of problems. For instance, the exploration and expression of cultural IP remain relatively traditional, lacking youthful, trendy, and story-driven presentations. Consumption scenarios and business formats are often conventional, lacking distinctiveness and recognizability, making it difficult to create lasting appeal. Digital applications are still at a basic level, failing to achieve truly immersive, interactive, or integrated online-offline experiences. Young people primarily enter the consumption zone as tourists, lacking channels for participation in planning, operation, or construction, leading to a weak sense of belonging and loyalty. Furthermore, the ongoing improvement of regional transportation infrastructure also affects the willingness of young people to visit and the convenience of travel to some extent. These issues collectively result in the zone’s insufficient appeal to youth, where resource advantages have not been fully transformed into consumption and competitive advantages.
By integrating research on youth consumption behavior and canal-based cultural tourism consumption zones, focusing on the specific case of the Tongzhou Grand Canal, this paper helps enrich the operational theory system for urban cultural tourism complexes targeting young customers. It addresses gaps in existing research that often overemphasize macro-planning while neglecting demand-side analysis, or focus on hardware construction while overlooking content operation, thus providing theoretical supplementation for the rejuvenation of domestic canal cultural belts, waterfront consumption zones, and urban cultural tourism business circles.
Simultaneously, based on the genuine consumption preferences of the youth group, the proposed innovative project system and safeguard measures have strong practical relevance and operability. They can help the Tongzhou Grand Canal International Consumption Zone more accurately match youth demands, enhance the revitalization of cultural IP, create differentiated competitive advantages, and increase appeal and stickiness among young customers. Moreover, the research findings can promote the deep integration of culture, tourism, commerce, sports, and creativity within the zone, improve economic and social benefits, and provide practical support for Beijing’s sub-center in its quest to build an international consumption center city.
Compared with other domestic urban waterfront cultural tourism districts, this case study possesses three distinctive attributes:
1) Resource uniqueness: simultaneously featuring the Grand Canal (a UNESCO World Heritage linear cultural landscape) and Universal Beijing Resort (a national-level theme park) as dual traffic-generating IPs.
2) Locational uniqueness: situated in Beijing’s sub-center and benefitting from the dual policy dividends of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development strategy and the “Two Zones” (National Service Industry Opening-up Comprehensive Demonstration Zone and Pilot Free Trade Zone) construction.
3) Youth catchment uniqueness: adjacent to numerous universities in Beijing, providing a massive potential youth consumer base. These features differentiate it from traditional historical districts or purely commercial CBDs, rendering the research conclusions distinctive and irreplaceable in reference value.
3. Research Methods and Data Sources
This paper adopts a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative and qualitative analysis. All current-status diagnoses and problem identifications are derived from objective data analysis. The optimization pathways and safeguard measures presented in Chapter 4 constitute advocacy-based innovative proposals derived from objective problem identification, with clear boundaries between the two content types.
1. Policy Text Analysis
A systematic review was conducted on 22 policy documents at the national, Beijing municipal, and Tongzhou district levels, covering culture, tourism, consumption, and digital economy. Relevant policy provisions regarding cultural-tourism integration, digital twins, nighttime consumption, and canal IP development were extracted to objectively summarize top-level policy directions. This process clarifies the policy support and compliance boundaries for the rejuvenation of the Consumption Zone, without subjective recommendations.
2. Literature Review
A comprehensive search was performed on core journal articles from Tourism Tribune, Tourism Forum, Youth Studies, and Cultural Heritage, as well as industry white papers published in the past three years. Existing academic conclusions in four domains—youth Guochao consumption, immersive cultural tourism, digital collectibles, and social media-driven tourism—were systematically organized to provide theoretical support for the full text and compensate for potential subjectivity in argumentation. Cited authoritative works include Yao Xu’s Research on Characteristics and Influencing Factors of Youth Consumption Behavior (Yao, 2024), China Youth Daily’s A Two-Way Synergy Between Youth Consumption and Cultural-Tourism Industry Transformation (Xing et al., 2025), and China Youth Daily’s Half of Travelers Opt for Immersive Local Experiences When Visiting Destinations (Wang, 2024).
3. Field Research
Quantitative Survey: An online and offline questionnaire was administered to 18 - 35-year-old youth, covering Beijing university students, Tongzhou workplace youth, local residents, and out-of-town young tourists. A total of 258 valid responses were collected. Descriptive statistics were generated regarding sample age, income, consumption preferences, travel barriers, and willingness to engage with digital experiences, yielding complete percentage data as the basis for pain-point diagnosis.
Qualitative Interviews: One-on-one in-depth interviews were conducted at Grand Canal Forest Park, Yuanyang Leting Port, and Shoukai Wanxiang Hui to document the original expressions of youth needs. Typical interview cases were compiled to intuitively identify genuine experiential shortcomings from the youth perspective.
4. Multi-Case Comparative Analysis
Seven domestic and international waterfront consumption districts were selected for horizontal comparison: Suzhou Pingjiang Road, Hangzhou Canal Asian Games Park, Shanghai North Bund, Guangzhou Zhujiang New Town, Wuxi Canal Hui, Singapore Clarke Quay, and Paris Rive Gauche. The comparison focused on their youth-oriented business formats, IP rejuvenation operations, digital cultural tourism implementation models, and nighttime economy systems. Objectively derived lessons were synthesized to provide industry-based empirical references for the proposed countermeasures.
4. Definition of Core Concepts
1) Youth Consumption Orientation
An urban business district planning and operational logic that aligns with the consumption characteristics of the 18 - 35 youth demographic across the entire value chain—from IP development, business format layout, scenario design, digital operations, to community participation—driven by their needs for cultural identity, social check-in experiences, immersive preferences, and digital trend consumption habits.
Focusing on the Tongzhou Grand Canal International Consumption Zone, this paper matches product supply across four major youth consumption tracks: “Guochao” cultural and creative products, real-scene immersive experiences, nighttime social consumption, and digital collectibles with online-offline linkages.
Quantitative Evaluation Criteria: youth visitor share within the zone; annual revisit frequency per youth; total volume of youth-generated spontaneous social media content; and total youth spending on cultural creative and digital products.
2) International Consumption Zone
A composite consumption agglomeration area that relies on urban scarce cultural or ecological resources, features integrated transport hubs, diverse international business formats, specialized industrial support policies, and full-time integrated cultural-tourism-commerce-sports scenarios. It covers local, inter-regional, and inbound tourists, and possesses three core functions: first-release economy, nighttime economy, and immersive experiences.
The Beijing Tongzhou Grand Canal International Consumption Zone studied herein distinguishes itself from traditional business CBDs or single historical-cultural districts by taking the Grand Canal (a UNESCO World Heritage site) as its cultural core and the visitor flow from Universal Beijing Resort as external support, positioning itself as a national-level demonstration zone for cultural-tourism-commerce integration in the sub-center.
Quantitative Evaluation Criteria: inter-city youth tourist scale; number of trend-first stores/youth-exclusive formats; nighttime business operating hours; cross-border consumption supporting facilities; and carrying capacity for integrated cultural-tourism projects across the entire region.
3) Consumer Stickiness
The long-term stable consumption attachment relationship formed by the 18 - 35 youth group toward the Tongzhou Grand Canal Consumption Zone, characterized by sustained visits, repeat purchases, proactive online dissemination, participation in offline events, and deep cultural identification with the Grand Canal. It is divided into two layers: superficial check-in stickiness and deep cultural-emotional stickiness.
This paper focuses on strategies to enhance deep cultural stickiness through youth-oriented IP, digital interactivity, and co-creation mechanisms, while downplaying the proportion of one-time superficial check-in visitors.
Quantitative Evaluation Criteria: annual youth visit frequency; repurchase rate of digital collectible blind boxes; youth online community activity level; volume of youth-generated check-in content; and youth canal cultural identity questionnaire scores.
5. Analysis of Youth Consumer Group Characteristics and Demands
Drawing on data from the China Youth Daily’s Youth Survey: Over 90% of Young Respondents Agree That the Rise of “Guochao” (China-Chic) Has Made Young People More Appreciative of China’s Outstanding Traditional Culture (Wu et al., 2025), and existing academic research, contemporary youth cultural tourism consumption among the 18 - 35 age group exhibits four stable characteristics:
1) Cultural Identity Drives Guochao Consumption
80.7% of surveyed youth regard “Guochao” as a trend barometer. 58.9% are willing to pay up to RMB 500 for traditional cultural creative products. The underlying logic of youth consumption is shifting from functional to cultural symbolic consumption; they are willing to pay a premium for products that embody local history and intangible cultural heritage elements in modernized forms. Yao (2024) argues that youth are significantly influenced by their cultural environment, displaying distinct symbolic and cultural consumption traits, with high acceptance of modernized presentations of traditional content.
2) Rejection of Static Sightseeing and Preference for Immersive Participation
Half of Travelers Opt for Immersive Local Experiences When Visiting Destinations (Wang, 2024) notes that 50.2% of respondents actively seek out immersive experience attractions, with the primary drivers being a sense of immersion (49.7%) and interactivity (48.9%). This reflects a growing preference among younger generations for immersive “slow travel”, signaling a fundamental shift from cursory “sightseeing check-ins” toward deeper, more perceptive engagement with destinations. Formats such as script killings, holographic performances, AR interactive experiences, and intangible cultural heritage handicrafts are significantly more attractive.
Also, Monitoring and Analysis of New-Generation Immersive Cultural Tourism Business Forms Based on Digital Technologies (Culture and Technology Innovation Service Alliance, 2020) indicates that contemporary young people hold a highly open and enthusiastic attitude toward immersive cultural tourism offerings, with acceptance rates continuing to rise. Data shows that 85.5% of tourists nationwide have experienced immersive tourism activities, making immersive experiences a new trend in cultural tourism consumption. In terms of core attitudes and acceptance, young people are no longer content with traditional "surface-level sightseeing" but are instead pursuing a sense of immersion, interactivity, and emotional resonance. Digital immersive scenarios combine personalized creativity with hyper-realistic perception, precisely aligning with the needs of the younger demographic, with emotional value emerging as a key driver of consumption..
3) Consumption Decisions Heavily Dependent on Social Media and Short-Video Platforms
Data from Thinking on the Path of Digital Empowerment of Cultural Relics “Activation” in the Era of Big Data (Liu et al., 2021) shows that the post-90s generation accounts for 54% of nighttime consumers in Beijing business districts.
Platforms like Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Bilibili directly influence youth destination choices through check-in-worthy scenarios. A core motivation for youth travel is to generate shareable content suitable for social media, with scenario aesthetics, distinctive signage, and limited-edition co-branded products being primary attractors.
4) High Receptivity to Digital Cultural Tourism and Virtual Collectibles
Research on Digital Collectibles Empowering Cultural Tourism IP Activation Pathways indicates that 18 - 35-year-olds are the core audience for digital collectibles, VR/AR virtual tours, and are willing to pay for “online virtual collection + offline physical benefits” integrated products.
They expect cultural tourism scenarios to incorporate new technologies such as digital twins and the metaverse.
Based on these characteristics, the demands of youth groups for the Tongzhou Grand Canal International Consumption Zone primarily manifest in four aspects:
Cultural Experience: Young people want to understand Grand Canal culture, canal transport history, and intangible cultural heritage in a more relaxed, enjoyable, and modern way, rather than passively receiving information through traditional display boards and static exhibits.
Scenario Consumption: They need consumption spaces that blend cultural atmosphere with a sense of fashion, featuring scenes and formats suitable for socializing, taking photos for social media, and enjoying night-time activities.
Digital Experience: Highly receptive to new technologies, they look forward to experiencing youthful applications within the zone, such as AR navigation, digital interactions, virtual scenes, and digital collectibles.
Sense of Participation: They desire channels to express their ideas and creativity, participating in event planning, content construction, and operational optimization, thereby gaining a stronger sense of belonging and identity.
6. Development Pain Points of the Tongzhou Grand Canal International Consumption Zone
1) Superficial Cultural IP Development and Traditional Expression
Early project planning prioritized heritage protection and static landscape creation. The planning teams lacked a youth perspective and did not involve young designers or cultural creative creators in IP development. On the operational side, there is a lack of awareness for collaborative co-branding with new media and trend brands. The cultural narrative remains monolithic and homogenized, unable to match youth demand for symbolic and Guochao-oriented consumption.
Although Tongzhou Grand Canal possesses rich historical and cultural resources, the current exploration and utilization remain at a shallow stage. Presentation methods are primarily static displays, textual descriptions, and landscape restoration, which are too traditional to align with the aesthetic habits and reception methods of young people. The design, content creation, and product development of cultural IP lack a youthful perspective, failing to create IP symbols that young people can remember, like, and share. Consequently, youth awareness of Grand Canal culture remains vague, making it difficult to establish emotional connections and value identification.
2) Homogenized Consumption Scenarios and Insufficient Night-Time Economy
The investment attraction phase prioritized established traditional chain brands, with insufficient policy support for niche youth entrepreneurial brands and immersive new formats. Inadequate nighttime transport and public service guarantees reduced merchant willingness to extend operating hours. The synergistic marketing system linking “daytime Universal Studios experience + nighttime Canal consumption” has not been established, and the format layout fails to match youth demand for round-the-clock social interaction.
Existing formats are primarily traditional dining, retail, and sightseeing. There is a low proportion of youth-preferred formats such as trendy toys, cultural and creative products, livehouses, immersive entertainment, and handicraft experiences, leading to weak scene identity. The development of the night-time economy is insufficient, with a limited range of activities. The lack of content appealing to youth, such as light shows, immersive performances, night markets, and trendy events, makes it difficult to retain the spillover of nighttime visitors from Universal Beijing Resort, preventing prolonged and high-frequency consumption by young people.
3) Low Level of Digitalization and Immature Online-Offline Integration
Dedicated funding for digital cultural tourism is limited, and there is a shortage of professionals in digital technology and metaverse operations. Online operations are handled by traditional publicity departments unfamiliar with youth new-media communication logics. An integrated online-offline consumption loop has not been established; digital products are not linked to offline consumption benefits, thereby failing to drive repeat visits.
Digital construction is still in a basic stage, mainly used for ticketing, navigation, and information dissemination. Technologies like digital twins, AR/VR, and the metaverse are not fully utilized to create immersive interactive experiences. The integration of online platforms and offline consumption scenarios is weak, lacking designs such as virtual tours, social interaction features, point reward systems, and digital collectibles that could enhance experience and repeat visit rates. Publicity and promotion channels are also relatively traditional, with insufficient content and operational strength on new media platforms popular among youth, hindering effective communication.
4) Lack of Youth Participation Mechanism Leading to Weak Stickiness
The operational management system lacks a youth co-creation section and fails to establish long-term incentive mechanisms. Youth-exclusive events, cultural creative competitions, and trend forums are held at low frequencies, lacking sustained content vehicles to continuously attract youth. This prevents the fulfillment of youth needs for participatory and identity-based engagement.
Operational decisions, event planning, and content updates are mainly led by the management, with young people lacking stable, normalized channels for participation. They cannot effectively express their needs, contribute ideas, or provide feedback. Furthermore, youth-dedicated activities, community operations, and feedback mechanisms are inadequate. This results in many young people becoming one-time visitors rather than converting into loyal users who repeatedly visit and actively spread positive word-of-mouth, resulting in weak consumption stickiness.
5) Inconvenient Transportation and Incomplete Supporting Facilities
The planning and implementation of transport hubs and dedicated bus routes are slow; coordinated planning between the cultural tourism consumption zone and the urban public transport system is insufficient. No targeted applications have been made for bus extensions or shared mobility support tailored to youth nighttime consumption needs. The travel convenience continues to constrain youth visitor growth.
The Tongzhou Grand Canal International Consumption Zone is located at a certain distance from the central urban area. Some rail transit lines are still under construction, and there is room for improvement in public transport coverage and frequency, especially during nighttime hours. The traffic linkage between the consumption zone and Universal Beijing Resort is not seamless. The time and economic costs for young people traveling between these areas are relatively high, negatively impacting their willingness to visit and travel convenience.
7. Countermeasures and Suggestions
1) Youth-Oriented and Trendy Revitalization of Cultural IP
Problem: Existing IP development lacks youth perspective and outdated narratives fail to meet youth demand for “Guochao” symbolic consumption.
Mechanism: Build a comprehensive “Guochao” IP system, reconstruct the canal transport narrative through immersive real-scene content, and transform static history into playable, check-in-worthy, and consumable trendy products, thereby establishing an emotional bond between youth and canal culture.
Establish the “Canal Trend Rise” China-Chic IP System: Design recognizable characters such as a minor canal transport official, a canal lucky koi fish, and an intangible cultural heritage artisan. Develop physical products like blind boxes, accessories, clothing, and stationery based on these characters, alongside launching digital collectibles to create an integrated online-offline IP matrix.
Create the “Millennium Canal Transport” Immersive Cultural Experience Project: Utilize holographic projections, live-action performances, and interactive installations to transform canal transport history into viewable, audible, and playable content.
Launch real-life scripted mystery games, intangible cultural heritage experience workshops, etc., allowing young people to understand, identify with, and spread culture through participation.
2) Reconstruct Scenes to Create Trendy Consumption Spaces
Problem: Existing formats lean toward traditional retail and dining, lacking youth social carriers and nighttime content for extended stays.
Mechanism: Zone-based creation of youth trend streets, enrichment of round-the-clock formats, and two-way traffic synergy with Universal Beijing Resort, building a “Day at Universal, Night at the Canal” consumption circuit.
Plan the “Canal West Bank” Youth Trendy Block: Introduce formats like cultural and creative products, trendy toys, independent designer brands, livehouses, scripted mystery games, and specialty dining. Set up booths for young entrepreneurs. Create photo-worthy scenes blending ancient charm with modern trends. Extend operating hours into the night, enriching the night-time consumption supply with night markets, light shows, street performances, etc.
Promote “Universal × Canal” Cross-Border Collaboration: Launch joint performances, co-branded products, combined ticket discounts, and shuttle buses to facilitate passenger flow interchange and complement each other’s strengths, forming a consumption pattern of “visit Universal by day, enjoy the Canal by night.”
3) Empower Experiences with Digital Technology
Problem: Digital technology is limited to basic services, lacking virtual interactive content appealing to youth, and new media promotion is weak.
Mechanism: Build a digital twin metaverse platform, develop lightweight digital interactive tools, and establish a youth-oriented new media promotion matrix to achieve an online-to-offline-to-online repurchase loop.
Build a “Metaverse Canal” Digital Twin Platform: Construct a virtual scene blending past and present, allowing young people to achieve immersive tours via smartphones or VR devices. Launch themed digital collectible blind boxes, integrating offline consumption with online rights to boost revisit motivation.
Develop the “Canal Smart Tour” Digital Interactive System: Provide AR navigation, 3D explanations, personalized route recommendations, team-up social features, check-in sharing functions, etc., making the tour process smarter, more social, and more enjoyable.
4) Establish Youth Co-Creation and Operation Mechanisms
Problem: Youth lack stable co-creation and feedback channels, functioning primarily as one-time visitors without forming a sense of belonging.
Mechanism: Establish regular youth participation systems, continuously host youth cultural events, build dedicated communities, and utilize incentive mechanisms to enhance youth loyalty and willingness to disseminate.
Launch the “Youth Consumption Experience Officer” Program: Recruit youth representatives long-term to participate in event planning, project testing, service feedback, promotion, etc. Provide incentives such as consumption discounts, experience opportunities, and entrepreneurial support. Establish stable communication and feedback mechanisms.
Hold the Annual “Canal Youth Culture Season”: Regularly organize music festivals, cultural and creative design competitions, trend forums, Hanfu parades, outdoor sports, etc., to continuously attract youth attention, participation, and gathering, gradually forming a youth community with a sense of belonging.
8. Safeguard Measures
1) Policy Support
To ensure smooth implementation of innovative projects, the consumption zone should actively connect with relevant industrial policies of Beijing and Tongzhou District, integrating key projects into the support scope of the sub-center’s cultural tourism industry development to secure policy benefits like subsidies, site support, and tax incentives. Simultaneously, optimize approval processes and create green channels for youth entrepreneurship, new format introduction, and cultural and creative project implementation, reducing barriers and improving efficiency.
2) Funding Support
Project implementation requires stable and diversified funding. A multi-investment mechanism can be established, based on government guiding funds, with social capital participation and market-oriented operation. Coordinate the use of cultural tourism industry support funds, attracting investment and operational participation from cultural tourism enterprises, investment institutions, and cultural and creative platforms. Provide entrepreneurial subsidies, crowdfunding support, and venture capital matchmaking services for young creators and small cultural and creative projects to alleviate early-stage financial pressure.
3) Talent Support
High-quality projects require high-level talent support. The consumption zone can strengthen cooperation with local universities, including Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, establishing industry-university-research collaboration mechanisms for targeted talent cultivation in areas like cultural and creative design, digital cultural tourism, new media operations, and youth community management. Simultaneously, recruit professionals with experience in cultural tourism operations, IP development, digital technology, and marketing, improve incentive mechanisms, and form an advisory team composed of industry experts, cultural scholars, and youth representatives to provide intellectual support for continuous project optimization.
4) Publicity Support
To enhance awareness and participation among youth, an accurate and effective publicity system is needed. The consumption zone can build a new media matrix on platforms highly used by youth, such as Xiaohongshu, Douyin, and Bilibili, continuously publishing content like store exploration guides, event previews, experience videos, and influencer reviews, creating topics and viral content. Combine this with offline promotion, campus publicity, business district collaboration, and influencer partnerships to form an integrated online-offline publicity pattern, continuously enhancing the zone’s visibility and influence among youth.
5) Transportation Support
Convenient transportation is a fundamental condition for attracting young visitors. Relevant departments can accelerate the construction of rail transit, improve the regional road network, optimize bus routes, and open direct express lines from key nodes like universities, business districts, and Universal Beijing Resort to the Grand Canal International Consumption Zone, appropriately extending operating hours based on youth nighttime consumption demand. Simultaneously, improve supporting facilities like parking lots and shared mobility pick-up/drop-off points to enhance overall accessibility and travel experience.
9. Conclusion
The youth demographic is a crucial driving force for the upgrading of cultural tourism consumption and the core customer segment that the Tongzhou Grand Canal International Consumption Zone must capture for high-quality development. The zone possesses the dual advantages of Grand Canal culture and Universal Beijing Resort, providing a solid foundation for becoming a trendy youth consumption destination. However, it also faces practical problems including traditional cultural expression, homogenized scenes, insufficient digitalization, weak youth stickiness, and incomplete transportation facilities. Oriented by youth consumption demands, this paper constructs an innovative project system from four aspects: cultural IP revitalization, scene reconstruction, digital empowerment, and youth co-creation, while proposing safeguard measures from five aspects: policy, funding, talent, publicity, and transportation. It is hoped that this will provide a reference for the zone to enhance its appeal, strengthen competitiveness, and activate the regional economy. Through a rejuvenation, quality enhancement, specialization, and digitalization upgrade path, the Tongzhou Grand Canal International Consumption Zone can not only better inherit and promote Grand Canal culture but also truly become a new urban consumption landmark that attracts, serves, and empowers youth, contributing to the construction of Beijing’s sub-center and the development of an international consumption center city.