(Yicai) Jan. 8 -- Blossoms Shanghai, a TV series set in 1960s and 1990s Shanghai, has succeeded in lighting people’s imagination and spurred consumption at the Fairmont Peace Hotel and other historic locations that feature in the drama directed and produced by Hong Kong film producer Wong Kar-Wai.

Shanghai’s Fairmont Peace Hotel and Huanghe Road, which appear in the series, have been inundated with tourists, Yicai learned.

The Fairmont Peace Hotel is making the most of the revival in its popularity and has renamed the rooms in which protagonist A Bao lived to “Blossoms Suite” and is charging CNY18,888 (USD2,641) a night. It has also introduced a set meal for two people consisting of well-known Shanghai dishes, namely braised pork ribs with rice cakes and stir-fried beef with rice noodles, costing CNY1,702 (USD238) as well as afternoon tea priced at CNY696 (USD97.6) per person. Every day, a lot of customers are dialing in and we are fully-booked, the hotel said.

TV series are quite influential and can guide people’s aesthetic judgments and invisibly shape their consumption habits, said Zhu Keli, founding director of the China Institute of New Economy and a director at the China Information Industry Association.

Blossoms Shanghai, based on the novel written by Jin Yucheng in 2012, has succeeded in telling the story of local Shanghai people during a period of economic boom, drawing the audience’s attention towards the real historical locations that appear in the drama.

Tourism-related searches for the Fairmont Peace Hotel surged more than five-fold from Dec. 27 to Jan. 5 compared with the previous 10 days, according to Chinese online travel agency Tongcheng. And searches for Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street, which is round the corner from the Fairmont Peace Hotel, soared 73 percent. While searches for Park Hotel and Okura Garden Hotel Shanghai, which also appear in the TV drama, jumped by 61 and 55 percent, respectively.

Editor: Kim Taylor