When Jinzu Wang and his friends are looking for something to do, they often head to a large spa complex near his university in Beijing.
After a soak in a hot bath, the 22-year-old might spring for a massage. Then there are some less conventional spa activities on the agenda, like billiards and karaoke. In between, he gorges himself on the all-you-can-eat fruit buffet.
He usually stays all night, to get a respite from his dormitory. At about 300 to 350 renminbi ($45 to $52) for an overnight stay, it’s a bargain compared to many hotels in the capital.
Across China, people like Wang are visiting expansive, multistory, 24-hour facilities that combine spa amenities with entertainment of every sort.
Many offer arcade games, cinemas and nap pods. One has a tank for scuba diving. Another has water slides. Shuiguo+ in the southern megacity Shenzhen offers unlimited caviar and spiny lobster in its seafood buffet. Nearby, visitors to Tangqi Tangquan Life TENZ spa, which spans 430,000 square feet, applaud the all-you-can-eat Häagen-Dazs. A spa in Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang Province, has a hot tub that resembles a hotpot soup container, with chilis floating in it.
The hotpot hot tub at Maple Leaf Village Hot Spring Resort in Harbin, China. Portions of this image have been blurred by CNN.
China has a long history of public bathhouses, where people without bathrooms or hot water would gather to wash, relax and mingle with neighbors. The tradition is particularly strong in northeast China, where the freezing, arid winters encouraged people to visit for a warm soak and to get a scrub to remove dry skin. Traditional bathhouses — which are largely functional but sometimes host social activities like cricket fighting or mahjong — are popular with older people in China.
But in recent years, they have evolved into massive, multipurpose, made-for-social-media venues that are attracting a new generation of fans, locals and tourists alike.
“Efficient relaxation”
People go for corporate retreats, birthday parties and girls’ nights out. Sometimes young people go for study sessions. There are myriad reasons for the rise in popularity, beyond their virality online.
Ninety-four percent of Chinese consumers said that wellness was a “top” or “important” priority, according to a survey published in 2025 by McKinsey & Company.
One popular 24-hour spa in Shenzhen has a tank for scuba diving and mermaid performances.And visiting spas is seen as an acceptable form of self-care in a country where counseling is growing in popularity among the urban middle class, but still stigmatized, said Dr. Anna Iskra, who researches therapeutic cultures and mental health in China at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. “People go to decompress,” she said.
Plus, there’s the appeal of a bargain, at a time when China’s economy is weakening. Entry at many of the mega spas starts at around 300 yuan (about $40). Services like massages usually cost extra.
“You pay so little, and yet you can get so much,” said Iskra.
It might also come down to changing travel habits. Demand for “urban micro-vacations” has exploded, Xinyi Zheng, who runs the branding and marketing team at Xiangshanghui Group, told CNN via email. It runs spas across the country, under the Qushui Lanting, Shuiguo and Shuiguo+ brands.
“With an increasingly fast pace of life, people lack large blocks of time for long-distance travel but need a place to completely escape work and relax,” said Zheng.
The mega spas provide a one-stop-shop for “efficient relaxation,” she added, which is “particularly appealing to busy urbanites.”
Demand for “urban micro-vacations” has exploded, Xinyi Zheng, from the branding and marketing team at Xiangshanghui Group, told CNN via email.
Wang said he goes to have fun and unwind. Young people like him have a reason to be stressed. Chinese students spend years studying for “the world’s toughest” college entrance exam. They face fierce competition for jobs after graduation.
“College students do have a lot of pressure,” said Wang. “I think going [to a mega spa] with friends is really relaxing.”
Mega spas are on the agenda for tourists
Spa culture has long been a draw for tourists visiting Asian countries: South Korea’s jjimjilbangs attract visitors who stop for a soak in a heated pool and a full-body scrub. Japan’s onsens are so popular with tourists that water supplies are under stress at some hot spring resorts.
Now, China’s mega spas are gaining popularity with overseas visitors — who are returning in droves as the government attempts to lure tourists back with measures like widespread visa-free entry following years of pandemic-related restrictions.
Social media has helped to propel the Instagram- and TikTok-ready mega spas to the top of their itineraries.
In 2026, Chinese cities grabbed four of the top five slots for trending spa cities according to analysis by SpaSeekers, a UK-based spa booking agency. Searches for spas in Shanghai spiked 67% year-on-year.
Bubble House Plus in Singapore.
The women's soaking pools at Bubble House Plus in Singapore.
The cinema at Bubble House Plus in Singapore.
Sasha, a photographer from San Francisco who asked to go by just her first name, visited Aqila Hot Spring spa in Shenzhen in July. She told CNN that her 10-year-old daughter enjoyed the arcade games, and she enjoyed the massages. “It was a good way to spend a couple of hours as it was raining all day.” Entry was about $75, including a massage, and free fruit and drinks, she said.
Technology is helping tourists experience China’s mega spas, where it’s not common for the staff to speak English. Entry and services at many of the businesses can be booked online using platforms like Klook, and payments are mostly digital, through apps like Alipay and WeChat Pay — which most travelers download ahead of arrival in the country anyway. Some have English menus, and if all else fails, visitors are using translation apps.
Sometimes the Zen vibes are lacking. Several tourists who visited mega spas recently said that other spa-goers watched videos on their phones without headphones, and the sound of snoring sometimes escaped from sleeping capsules. Some spas have smoking rooms.
The karaoke room at a mega spa in Beijing.
The concept is expanding outside of China. In May, Bubble House Plus, a 24-hour facility that calls itself “an urban recharge sanctuary,” opened its doors in Singapore. It has soaking pools, steam rooms, a meditation room, capsule resting pods, a cinema and an e-sports room. Twenty-four-hour admission plus lunch costs 129 Singapore dollars ($100).
Mega spas may provide a space for self-care, but the variety on offer appears to be a major draw for their new fans.
“Many spas nowadays combine entertainment facilities together,” said Wang. “It solves the problem of [different friends] wanting to go to different places.”
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