Shanghai, Sep 9 (IANS): Shanghai's autumn shopping and tourism festival has kicked off with the launch of a mobile shopping application.

The month-long festival, scheduled to run until early October, features a variety of sales promotion activities during peak shopping periods such as the upcoming National Day holiday and the Shanghai Tourism Festival, Xinhua news agency reported.

A mobile shopping app was unveiled during the festival's opening ceremony on Tuesday to provide handy information and tips for shoppers, such as popular shopping destinations, travel guides, and tax-free policies.

The city also launched a WeChat mini programme for "themed" shopping routes in Shanghai, including routes for local shops, outlets and flagship stores of global brands.

The opening ceremony also marked the launch of a consumption-related big data lab in Shanghai. The newly built lab will focus on collecting and analyzing consumption-related data to deepen the convergence of technologies and the consumption market, according to the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce.

The festival is part of China's wider efforts to boost domestic consumption -- a nationwide "consumption promotion month" that will run from September 9 to October 8.

In Shanghai, 77 sales promotion activities involving more than 2,000 companies have been incorporated as key events of the consumption promotion month, local authorities said.