Hong Kong, Monday, 29 September 2025.
This Monday Madame Tussauds Hong Kong added a wax likeness of Gong Jun to its Fashion Zone — a targeted play to win back Greater Bay Area and mainland China visitors by leveraging a streaming-era star with a large, engaged fanbase. For retail and F&B teams the intriguing fact is clear: the figure is positioned as a short‑term activation engine, designed to extend dwell time, drive themed merchandise sales and create seasonal photo‑op programming (including an AI-powered immersive photo station). Operationally this fits routine lifecycle refreshment—balancing sculpting and display costs against predictable uplift in per‑capita spend. Expect coordinated marketing, licensed product drops and time‑limited ticket bundles to amplify conversion. For retail leaders the move underlines a broader trend: celebrity‑driven IP is being used tactically across mature urban attractions to extract incremental revenue and re‑localize experiences for priority source markets; measurement should focus on dwell time, attachment rate and incremental ticket+retail spend.