Diversified tourism products stimulate new demands in China

By Wang Ke, Bai Guangdi, People’s Daily

China’s tourism consumption is turning diversified and personalized.

Various tourism services are hitting the Chinese market, such as cultural tours, medical tours, sports travel and ski vacation.

According to statistics released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, every Chinese traveled more than four times annually on average between 2016 and 2020.

A plan for the development of tourism during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025) responded to tourists’ diversified and personalized consumption demands, calling for new scenarios and models of tourism consumption.

Integrating tourism with culture is an important way to improve the development quality of the tourism sector.

Recently, relevant departments jointly issued a notice that proposes to promote integrating the country’s cultural and tourism industries wider and on a higher level, encouraging efforts to integrate intangible cultural heritages or relevant elements into tourist sites.

Local authorities have also enhanced efforts to merge the two sectors, so as to launch tourism services that better meet tourists’ demands.

Nanjing, capital of east China’s Jiangsu province, is a city that offers a rich and diverse cultural experience. The city, with a strategy to introduce intangible cultural heritages to tourist sites, has infused fine traditions and culture placed in the museums or hidden in the neighborhood into all links of the tourism industry, including dining, hospitality, transportation, shopping, and entertainment.

In the Confucius Temple-Qinhuai River scenic belt of the city, an experience center is built, where intangible cultural heritage perfectly blends with modernity. A museum of local food opens to the public in the city, and visitors can learn to make Nanjing salted duck, a famous local dish, in a demonstration restaurant nearby.

Besides, small exhibitions for intangible cultural heritages also attracted attention in scenic spots across the city.

As the Internet, big data, artificial intelligence and other new technologies are widely applied, intelligent tourism that’s digitalized and internet-based is becoming a new engine driving the high-quality development of the industry, creating new scenarios of tourism consumption.

Some scenic areas, through digitalization, have improved their reservation, tourist flow monitoring, smart parking and other services, so as to ensure orderly visiting and better tourists’ experiences. Some have developed digital experience products, such as electronic maps, to enrich tourists experiences.

Cities in east China’s Shandong province are employing 5G, virtual reality and other frontier technologies to integrate industrial factors and public service resources, in an effort to build a one-stop information service platform.

Suzhou in Jiangsu province is advancing an intelligent program that enables tourists to obtain tourism information via an online platform, such as the introduction of tourist sites and ticket discounts.

The platform will include more information, such as the culture of Suzhou, as well as the history and features of tourist sites, to give tourists a better experience, said Shi Feng, an official with the Suzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism.

The tourism industry is seeing a closer relationship with sports events, camping, technology and other fields in the process of improving the supply system of tourism products. Such integrated development not only creates new growth drivers, but also leads to new consumption scenarios and business forms in the tourism market.

Last year, relevant departments issued guidance on tourism to encourage interactive development between tourism and outdoor sports, camping and other businesses. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the General Administration of Sport jointly unveiled a second list of national-level ski resorts. Altogether 19 ski resorts have won national-level recognition today.

Besides, camping has grown into an important part of the leisure lifestyle and a new engine of driving leisure tourism. New business forms which combine camping with tourism, culture and photography are embracing rapid development.