A navy-style hat, a beige coat and a pair of wideleg jeans might look like the makings of a casual weekend outfit. On Li Han's desk, however, the ensemble was being carefully styled on a palm-sized doll.
Li, a 24-year-old college student in Beijing, had just returned from a doll exhibition, bringing home miniature dresses, handmade hats and a lighted retro-style display cabinet. Piece by piece, she arranged them on her desk, creating a miniature scene for her doll — and a quiet break from her busy routine.
"I've always had a soft spot for handmade pieces," she said.
For Li, dressing her doll and setting up a tiny home for it offers a quiet pause from the rush of daily life. "Each piece carries the maker's thought and care. Some are one of a kind, which makes them feel even more special."
The miniature dresses, handmade hats and miniature furniture on Li's desk reflect the rising popularity of doll outfits and accessories. Designed specifically for dolls, the outfits range from everyday wear to traditional Chinese styles such as the mamianqun (horse face skirt), and qipao, also known as cheongsam, as well as costumes inspired by China's ethnic groups and designs referencing intangible cultural heritage.
Meanwhile, in Xiangyang, a city in Hubei province, power employee Liu Sisi has invited a group of clients to visit an intelligent monitoring hall of State Grid Xiangyang, where a humanoid robot equipped with 43 flexible joints monitors screens with unwavering focus.
Operating 24/7 without interruption at the Jiangbei control center, it captures real-time data from 96 substations, serving as an "AI guardian" for the city's power grid.
The visitors were amazed that the Unitree G1 robot — the first humanoid power-grid monitoring robot in the State Grid Hubei electric power system — marked an innovative breakthrough in human-machine collaboration in grid monitoring.
"We are not only showcasing technology, but also exploring the experience economy in energy services," said Liu, a deputy team leader at the Jiangbei power station.
This is just the tip of the experience economy.
Back to Li's case, as China's designer toy market continues to expand, doll outfits are carving out a growing market of their own. Once a niche hobby, doll styling is gaining traction among young consumers like Li, who see it not only as a form of self-expression, but also as an enjoyable hands-on way to unwind from study, work and busy schedules.
The trend has gathered momentum across China over the past year, with doll exhibitions spreading to more major cities. The NICE Mini World Doll Expo — a touring exhibition that has drawn a growing following among doll enthusiasts — is expected to stage about 20 shows across China this year, organizers said.
Having just returned from a doll exhibition, Li said the growing crowd was hard to miss.
"There were long lines at many of the popular booths, and most visitors were young people around my age," she said.
The growing crowds come amid broader momentum in China's designer and collectible toy market. Retail sales of designer and collectible toys in China reached 67.69 billion yuan ($9.4 billion) in 2025, up 45.4 percent year-on-year, said the China Toy and Juvenile Products Association.
Wang Peng, a researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, said the popularity of doll outfits and exhibitions reflects young consumers' desire for relaxation, self-expression and hands-on participation.
"They are not just buying the items themselves. For many consumers, the appeal lies in the process of dressing and styling their dolls, which brings a sense of accomplishment and emotional connection," Wang said.
Such enthusiasm reflects a broader shift in China's consumer market. Instead of focusing solely on what they buy, many consumers are placing greater value on the experiences, emotional value and a sense of participation that come with a purchase.
That shift has brought the experience economy into sharper focus. As China's service consumption continues to upgrade, businesses are increasingly looking to create products and services that offer not only utility, but also personal involvement, emotional resonance and deeper engagement.
"The experience economy represents a shift from functional value to emotional value," said Chen Lifen, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council.
Consumers are paying not only for the practical use of a product or service, but also for the feelings, social connections and sense of fulfillment generated during the process, Chen said, adding that the growth of the services sector has created fertile ground for the experience economy, as consumers increasingly value personalized, engaging and emotionally meaningful experiences.
The latest figures show that China's service retail sales rose 5.5 percent year-on-year in 2025, 1.7 percentage points faster than goods retail sales, while spending on services accounted for 46.1 percent of per-capita consumer expenditure, said Kang Yi, head of the National Bureau of Statistics, at a news conference in January.
Kang highlighted that as living standards continue to improve, household consumption in China is shifting from a goods-dominated model toward a more balanced mix of goods and services, steadily unlocking the potential of services consumption.
Chen added that the experience economy — as an extension of the services sector — is broadening the scope of consumption and creating spillover effects across industries, helping drive deeper integration among cultural tourism, sports, commerce, technology and other sectors.
Policymakers are also responding to the shift. In late January, the State Council released a work plan to foster new growth drivers in services consumption, calling for improved services supply, more innovative consumption scenarios and stronger talent support.
The plan identified performance services, sporting event services, and emotion and experience-oriented services as potential growth areas, and called for efforts to build new momentum in these sectors by refining incentive mechanisms, enhancing safety management, fostering high-quality brands and developing supporting platforms.
Enhanced XR improves lives
Beyond policy support, technological innovation is also opening up new possibilities for the experience economy. As artificial intelligence, extended reality and spatial audio become more widely applied, everyday activities such as watching films and playing games are being reshaped into more immersive, interactive and portable experiences.
XR glasses are a case in point. By taking entertainment beyond fixed screens such as televisions, monitors and handheld consoles, they allow users to bring a more personalized viewing and gaming experience into different settings, from home to daily commutes and travel.
VITURE, one of the world's fastest-growing XR glasses makers, offers one example of how technology is being used to expand experience-based consumption. In May, the company launched its latest flagship XR glasses, VITURE Beast, which it said can deliver an immersive large-display viewing experience whether users are at home, commuting or traveling.
The company said the device is equipped with a next-generation Sony Micro-OLED display and a 58-degree field of view, designed to offer a wider image while maintaining clarity, color consistency and visual detail.
A user on Xiaohongshu — a Chinese social media platform also known as RedNote — recently shared his experience with the device, saying he mainly uses it to watch sports and movies, and that the immersive viewing experience "feels like sitting in a cinema".
Such devices are not only reshaping personal entertainment, but also opening up fresh possibilities for cultural tourism, where history can be seen, heard and experienced in more vivid ways.
VITURE has previously applied XR technology at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, a more than 600-year-old UNESCO World Heritage site, to support heritage tours. With immersive video guides, visual storytelling and spatial audio, visitors can explore landmarks including the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, the Echo Wall and the Circular Mound Altar in more engaging ways.
According to the company, the XR experience highlights architectural details such as carved dragons and painted beams at the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, the Temple of Heaven's iconic, triple-eaved, blue-tiled landmark. It also uses spatial audio to explain the famed acoustic effect of the Echo Wall and provides immersive narration at the Circular Mound Altar to help visitors better understand the site's ritual and historical significance.
Market response also points to the consumption potential of immersive devices. VITURE said the Beast is available on Tmall, JD.com and Douyin, and buyers can receive subsidies of up to 15 percent under China's consumer goods trade-in program. After its launch, the product ranked among the top performers in the high-end XR category on Tmall and JD.com, according to the company.
David Jiang, founder and chief executive officer of VITURE, said the Beast marks another step forward for the company in XR glasses.
"With VITURE Beast, we push the boundaries of what XR can make possible as a next-generation gateway to immersive digital experiences," Jiang said, adding that XR glasses are reshaping the way people watch, play and engage with digital content.
"XR and other technologies are taking consumption into a more multidimensional and immersive stage, digitally reshaping sensory experiences," Wang said.
Such technologies add value to services consumption, turning relatively simple physical experiences into higher-level digital alternatives. They also support the service sector's transition toward digital, intelligent and immersive models, making them a key driver of high-quality consumption growth, Wang said, adding that despite its rapid growth, the experience economy still faces challenges, with standardization and homogenization being among the key concerns.
He said the sector cannot rely solely on traffic and novelty, and that sustainable growth will depend on continuous innovation, differentiated content and better service quality.
Echoing that view, Wei Qijia, director and researcher at the Industrial Economy Research Office of the economic forecasting department under the State Information Center, said innovation is the lifeblood of the experience economy.
Services innovation, Wei said, requires deeper integration of technology and application scenarios, as well as more diversified and high-quality experience-based products.
"China's experience economy is at a critical stage in which market expansion and quality upgrading are advancing at the same time," Chen said.
Looking ahead, Chen said policymakers should better align efforts to improve people's livelihoods, boost consumption and invest in both physical assets and human capital. She added that new demand should guide new supply, while new supply should create new demand, promoting a more dynamic balance between supply and demand.
China's experience economy had reached 18.4 trillion yuan by the end of November, up 22.6 percent year-on-year and 7.4 percentage points higher than the global average growth rate, said the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.
The academy projects the market will exceed 22 trillion yuan in 2026, and maintain an average annual growth rate of more than 20 percent during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30).