Visitors enjoy food and drinks at Wine Fair, a sub-event of the wine and spirits festival at 1933 Shanghai in Hongkou district.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Among the companies that have benefitted from this rise in interest is Chinese baijiu (white liquor) brand Qianzuiduo.

This year, the brand set up a 10-square-meter container space in which visitors could sample different types of cocktails made using the company's baijiu.

The tiny space managed to rake in 50,000 yuan in sales over two days, a two-fold increase from last year.

"The growing influence of the festival is the main reason behind our growth in sales. The festival has also become livelier because of the additional activities and this has certainly helped," says Deng Jianghao, CEO of Qianzuiduo.

"In the past, visitors usually hung around for three to five minutes before moving on to another booth. This time around, more people stayed longer to experience the atmosphere and our products."

Deng points out that it wasn't just sales at the festival that have improved.

"Our business wasn't affected by the COVID-19 epidemic. In fact, our sales have increased over the past several months compared with the same period of last year," he says.

Xu adds that digital platforms have also empowered the festival. He says merchants are not just resorting to offline communication to draw customers but livestreaming channels as well.