2026大众点评“必吃榜”“必玩榜”同日揭晓 数亿食客、玩家参与评选

Dianping (Mass Appraisal) released its 2026 edition of the "Must-Eat List" and launched an updated "Must-Play List" on the same day, June 24, 2026. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Core baseline data: The Must-Eat List covers 4,179 restaurants across 264 cities, with 130 million diners participating in this year’s selection. It added 120 new cities globally, including Putian, Diqing, Jinzhou and Zigong. Nearly half of all listed restaurants are long-standing local establishments, with core characteristics of "local recommendation, authentic flavor and fresh-made to order". The Must-Play List includes 3,764 attractions across 230 cities, covering more than 40 categories of leisure activities.

2. Reference value: Both rankings are selected entirely based on real user reviews, with no commercial interference or manual nominations, making them highly credible consumption guides for consumers. Merchants shortlisted in newly added cities saw notable traffic growth during this year’s May Day holiday, proving the market’s broad recognition of the lists.

This year’s list release sends several key industry signals to food and local leisure brands. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Consumer trend insights: Consumers increasingly favor street-style food, authentic local flavors, long-standing local establishments and fresh-made products. "Recommended by locals" has become a core factor influencing consumer purchasing decisions. Brands should deepen their efforts in localization and differentiation, and highlight their advantages in authentic quality.

2. Traffic channel opportunity: A spot on Dianping’s Must-Eat or Must-Play List delivers substantial traffic growth. Shortlisted merchants in newly added cities saw nearly 200% month-over-month online traffic growth during this year’s May Day holiday, with tourist traffic surging almost 300%. Brands should value this open traffic channel and prioritize daily user reputation management.

3. Updated listing requirements: The Must-Eat List has upgraded its selection criteria, requiring merchants to not only offer good food and fun experiences but also deliver consistent quality. The entire selection process remains free of commercial interference, so brands can only secure a spot through real user reputation, with no shortcut via commercial manipulation.

For food and local leisure sellers, this year’s list release brings the following opportunities and key insights:

1. New market opportunity: The Must-Eat List added 120 new cities, including tier-down markets and niche travel destinations such as Putian and Diqing. Local sellers in these regions now gain greater national exposure access, opening a new window for traffic growth.

2. Reference for shifting user demand: Consumer preference has clearly shifted to long-standing local restaurants, authentic flavors and street-style特色 offerings. Sellers can adjust their product and operation strategies to prioritize authentic products recognized by locals and highlight the advantage of fresh preparation, which aligns better with user expectations and listing requirements.

3. Opportunity and risk reminder: Even shortlisting brings explosive traffic growth. Sellers should focus on managing real user reviews on Dianping, as organic reputation building can deliver tangible traffic gains. Note that the selection is completely free of commercial interference, with no way to buy a listing. Sellers should avoid falling for claims from unregulated intermediaries.

For factories in the catering supply chain, this year’s list offers the following insights and opportunities:

1. Reference for product design and production: The core tags of listed restaurants are "authentic flavor" and "fresh-made", indicating that downstream catering brands are increasingly focusing on localized and fresh products. Factories can adjust their R&D and production directions to develop standardized ingredients and fresh semi-finished products tailored to local flavors of different regions, to match downstream brands' demand.

2. New business opportunity: After the Must-Eat List added 120 new tier-down and destination cities, the accelerated growth of newly exposed local catering brands will drive up demand for supply chain services. Factories can expand into these lower-tier markets to acquire new customers and capture new growth.

3. Insights for digital cooperation: As the ranking is based on real user reviews, consumer reputation has become increasingly critical to the survival and growth of catering brands. Factories can cooperate with downstream brands to deliver consistent product quality, help brands maintain positive user reputation, and deepen long-term cooperative relationships with brand clients.

For local life service providers, this year’s list reveals the following key industry insights:

1. Industry development trend: By expanding from a single food ranking to launching an updated leisure activity ranking, Dianping has helped establish a public consumption reference system covering the two core local life segments of food and leisure, built entirely on real user reviews. Consumers increasingly rely on such rankings to make consumption decisions, meaning the online traffic dividend for local life services continues to expand.

2. Core client pain point: The core demand of most food and leisure merchants is to access low-cost, precise online traffic. A ranking spot delivers explosive traffic growth, but it requires consistent product quality and positive real user reviews. Most small and medium-sized merchants lack the capability for systematic user review management and consistent quality control, which is a core pain point that service providers can address.

3. Reference for business direction: In line with the updated selection criteria of this year’s ranking, service providers can develop refined operation services tailored for Dianping ranking campaigns, helping merchants maintain consistent product and service quality, manage real user reviews properly, meet the updated selection criteria, and capture traffic growth through ranking.

For local life platform operators, this year’s Dianping list release offers the following key insights:

1. Core demands of users and merchants: Consumers need a credible public consumption reference system based on real experiences, while merchants need fair and credible traffic exposure channels. Commercial-interference-free rankings based on real reviews can meet the core demands of both sides. Platforms can refer to this model to build their own content and traffic systems.

2. Reference for operation and management: Dianping has stuck to its 20-plus-year core positioning of "users recommend to users" and adhered to the rule of no commercial interference and no manual nominations, building high user trust. This proves that real UGC content is the core competitiveness of local life platforms. Long-term platform operation must be built on real user content to earn user trust.

3. Reference for incremental expansion: By adding 120 new cities and expanding deeper into the leisure segment, this year’s ranking shows that tier-down markets and the local leisure category still hold large untapped incremental space. Platforms can prioritize investment and merchant recruitment in these two areas to capture new business growth.

For local life industry researchers, this year’s list release reveals the following key industry insights:

1. New industry trends: Leveraging 20-plus years of accumulated real review data, Dianping has evolved from a third-party review platform to a public consumption reference system co-created by millions of users. It has expanded from the food segment to the leisure segment, forming a mature non-commercial ranking business model.

2. Characteristics of the business model: This model adheres to the rule of no commercial interference and no manual nominations, with all selection based on real user experience reviews. It has won user favor through high trust, and delivers tangible traffic growth for merchants, achieving a win-win-win outcome for users, merchants and the platform. May Day data shows shortlisted merchants saw nearly 200% online traffic growth, proving the model’s effectiveness in the market.

3. New characteristics of industrial development: The Must-Eat List upgraded its selection criteria from "tasty" to "consistently tasty", and expanded to 120 new lower-tier cities. This reflects that local life consumption has upgraded from a focus on access to services to a focus on quality, consistency and reliability, and industrial growth is increasingly shifting to lower-tier markets.