Currently, as China's economy shifts from a high-speed growth stage to a high-quality development stage, residents' consumption demand is shifting from "whether there is" to "whether it is good or not", and the consumption structure is continuously upgrading from material oriented to service-oriented, and from survival oriented to development oriented. In this process, an economic form centered on consumer participation and emotional resonance, the "experience economy," has flourished and become an important engine for driving domestic demand and promoting industrial transformation. The "Report on the Development of China's Experience Economy (2025)" released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology shows that as of the end of November 2025, the market size of China's experience economy has reached 18.4 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22.6%, which is 7.4 percentage points higher than the global average growth rate. It is expected to break through 22 trillion yuan in 2026 and maintain an average annual growth rate of over 20% during the "15th Five Year Plan" period. The so-called "experience economy" refers to the economic activities created by enterprises with services as the stage, goods as props, and consumers as the center, which can enable consumers to participate and create beautiful memories. This concept was first proposed by American scholars Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, who believed that the experience economy was the fourth stage of human economic development after agricultural economy, industrial economy, and service economy. The agricultural economy produces natural products, the industrial economy focuses on standardized goods, the service economy uses intangible services as value carriers, and the experience economy goes further by using consumers' personal participation and emotional experiences as the source of economic value. After the work of the experience presenter is completed, the value of the experience continues to linger and settle into a long-lasting beautiful memory in the minds of consumers. In daily life, there are various forms of experience economy, whether it is watching a concert, experiencing handmade pottery, walking into an immersive cultural and tourism district, participating in a virtual reality interactive project, or enjoying a scene based shopping atmosphere in a mall, all belong to the category of experience economy. The rise of the experience economy has a profound economic and social foundation and a logic of demand change. Firstly, the optimization of industrial structure provides an important prerequisite for the experience economy. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the added value of China's service industry will reach 80.9 trillion yuan in 2025, an increase of 5.4% over the previous year, accounting for 57.7% of GDP, an increase of 0.9 percentage points over the previous year; In the first quarter of 2026, the added value of the service industry reached 20.6 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.2%, accounting for 61.7% of GDP, an increase of 0.4 percentage points compared to the same period last year. The economic structure dominated by the service industry has laid a solid foundation for the vigorous development of the experience economy. Secondly, the increase in the level of consumer demand among residents is a deeper reason. Consumers are no longer satisfied with the practical functions of products, but are more concerned about the emotional experience, social attributes, and sense of meaning gained during the consumption process. Consumers are not just paying for being present, but for the emotions, cognition, and identity recognition that can trigger flow in the scene. At the same time, the rapid advancement of digital technology has provided strong supply capacity for the experience economy. Virtual reality and augmented reality technology make it possible to be "immersive", artificial intelligence models achieve personalized interactive experiences, and digital twins build new scenes of virtual real integration. Technology not only reduces the development cost of experiential products, but also expands the temporal and spatial boundaries of experiences. The booming development of the experience economy has not only reshaped consumer behavior on the demand side, but also injected new impetus into industrial transformation and upgrading on the supply side. On the one hand, in order to meet the diverse and immersive experience needs of consumers, new formats such as immersive cultural tourism, digital art exhibitions, real-life interactive entertainment, and virtual reality experience halls have emerged in the market. Taking the cultural and tourism industry as an example, the concept of experience economy is profoundly changing the content design and value creation of cultural and tourism products, from the "lying flat" drifting of Mao'er Mountain in Guilin to the new scene of cultural and tourism superposition in Moganshan, from the immersive marine science popularization exhibition in Shenzhen MR to the emerging intangible cultural heritage handicraft experience workshops in various places. On the other hand, the concept of experience economy has penetrated into traditional industries such as retail, catering, and manufacturing, prompting enterprises to shift from providing standardized products to creating warm and storytelling consumer experiences. In the future, with the profound transformation from "service-oriented" to "experiential", it will drive enterprises in the field of commodity consumption to transform from "producers" to "experience suppliers throughout the product lifecycle". The experiential transformation of the retail industry is a powerful proof that more and more offline businesses are no longer satisfied with selling goods, but are competing in scene creation and shared experiences. In addition, cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and the Internet of Things are widely used in the construction of experiential scenarios, which are deeply reconstructing the service supply system, reshaping consumer experience scenarios, and reshaping the industrial integration ecology. Technology is no longer a cold production tool, but a warm bridge connecting consumer emotions and brand value. Of course, while the experience economy is developing rapidly, it also faces some noteworthy challenges. One is the hidden concern of homogeneous competition. Developing the experience economy requires breaking away from superficial competition and avoiding the misconception of conceptual packaging. Currently, some regions and enterprises are pursuing concepts such as "immersive" and "interactive", resulting in similar scenes and repetitive content. The second is the need for a balance between technology and humanities. Some experiential projects excessively pursue technological wonders and lack cultural connotations, with excessive excitement but insufficient aftertaste. The essence of the experience economy lies in touching the soul and creating meaning. Technology is just a means, while humanities are the soul. Thirdly, relevant standards and regulations need to be improved. The emerging experience industry involves multiple issues such as data security, consumer rights protection, and service quality standards, and requires the timely establishment and improvement of a sound regulatory system. Facing the future, promoting the sustainable and healthy development of the experience economy requires a synergy between government guidance and market innovation. At the policy level, it is necessary to strengthen top-level design and guidance, cultivate diversified consumption scenarios, enrich the integration of business, travel, culture, and sports formats, vigorously develop new forms of consumption such as event economy, performing arts economy, ice and snow economy, and night economy, and develop a batch of experiential products with customized, scene based, and emotional characteristics. At the enterprise level, we should adhere to quality as the foundation and culture as the soul, put effort into the depth and cultural connotation of product experience, use cultural depth to combat experience fatigue, and provide consumers with truly touching value. At the same time, when developing experiential products using new technologies such as artificial intelligence, we should attach great importance to data security and ethical boundaries, so that technological innovation can truly serve people's better lives. (Looking into the New Era)