Constructing a tourism culture

Experiences that integrate culture and tourism elements and favorable policies for their development have, in recent years, continued to emerge in the country to satisfy the increasingly diverse needs of travelers.

In 2017, the culture and tourism sectors enjoyed explosive growth, which was powered by capital investment, technology and creative endeavor.

Domestic theme park brands, including the Overseas Chinese Town, Fantawild and Chimelong made the top 10 of their respective worldwide categories in the 2017 global theme park report that was jointly conducted by the infrastructure consulting firm AECOM and the Los Angeles-based Themed Entertainment Association.

Overseas Chinese Town received 42.9 million traveler visits in 2017, while Fantawild welcomed 38.5 million visitors and 31 million visits were made to Chimelong during the same period.

Tourism performances featuring Chinese folk culture and history by the Songcheng Performance Development and Huaxia Culture and Tourism Group, have all made their presence felt in the tourism industry since 2017.

The Songcheng company, the first of its kind in the performing arts industry to go public in China, has more than 70 theaters of various types with 175,000 seats in total. In addition to performances, the company has expanded into leisure tourism and other live entertainment.

The country's culture and tourism integration entered a new era since the Ministry of Culture and Tourism was inaugurated in Beijing on April 8,2018.

Domestic theme park players have increasingly made inroads in terms of adding distinctive domestic culture to fun experiences for travelers.

Fantawild has made a point of working Chinese cultural elements into its customer experiences in recent years.

The domestic theme park operator has developed two facilities that are built on the back of the country's red tourism drive this year.

They offer modernized experiences based on Chinese history and are part of Fantawild's Beautiful China trilogy.

The first of the trilogy, Oriental Heritage, taps into the country's 5,000-year history. Ningbo Park of Oriental Heritage, which opened in 2016, had received over 16 million visitors by the end of 2020. The park has been on the top 20 list for theme parks in the Asia-Pacific region for four consecutive years, according to the Global Attractions Attendance Report (2020), compiled by AECOM.

The two newly opened parks this year belong to the second installment of the trilogy, Glorious Orient, and are themed around China's modern history.

One of them opened in Ganzhou, Jiangxi province, in May this year, and the other opened in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, in July. The theme was centered around the modernization of China over the past 170 years. There are six major attraction areas at each park. Some of the main attractions include Let's Fly, where visitors can fly over picturesque landscapes from around the country, and Zhiyuan, which lets visitors brave the waves on the eponymous warship that was purchased from Britain for the Beiyang Fleet. The Glorious Years attraction enables visitors to see the rapid changes that occurred after the founding of New China.

Among them, the water-based Zhiyuan ride offers a swashbuckling experience of fierce sea battles and the legendary voyages of the ship. Visitors will get a healthy measure of the patriotic and adventurous spirit of the vessel's crew. An immersive water-based dark ride that adopts new audio and video technology offers a vivid display of the history of China's industrialization.

"We believe culture is a spiritual core of tourism, and offers differentiation and added value to tourism products," says Shang Linlin, executive president of Fantawild.

The market feedback has been very positive and people of different ages have flocked to theme parks filled with Chinese culture and history, Shang says.

"Some of our customers said they were thrilled to experience stories that they've heard growing up, and some brought their children to learn about the past and appreciate the life they enjoy today," she says.

Development of the final installment of the trilogy is currently underway and is expected to be unveiled to the public in 2024.

"We put a great premium on cultural studies and development, and then express the essence and spirit of Chinese culture through high-tech means," Shang says.

Since 2016, Overseas Chinese Town has developed about 30 culture and tourism projects in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and more than 30 in the Yangtze River Delta.

Spring Festival celebrations, Han costume culture and traditional music festivals have been hosted in OCT's Happy Valley theme parks across the country.

OCT has also developed many art performances featuring Chinese culture over the years. The group now has in excess of 30 theaters, each of which can accommodate more than 1,000 audience members. They have altogether attracted more than 100 million visitors over the years, according to OCT.

In Yunnan province, performances are based on local distinctive ethnic cultural elements, which have welcomed 1.2 million visitors every year.

Since 2018, the OCT Group has hosted an annual culture and tourism festival. It has produced at least 1,100 themed events and 2,500 culture and tourism experiences have been staged.

At this year's festival, which kicked off in June, travelers flocked to OCT's newly opened Yangzhou Dream City in Jiangsu province, and enjoyed an international fun festival in the Xiangyang Fantasy Resort in Hubei province. A bonfire party was held at OCT's camping site in Nyingchi, in the Tibet autonomous region.

Nighttime musical carnivals were held at several Happy Valley theme parks in cities such as Jiangxi province's Nanchang and Guangdong province's Shenzhen. Art festivals that displayed Chinese culture and innovative contemporary art were also staged.

"Against the background of the new development pattern, as a State-owned enterprise mainly engaged in the cultural and tourism industry, OCT Group will promote the overall upgrading of this cultural tourism festival, and create more activities and new experiences to meet the public need for high-quality tourism products with a spirit of craftsmanship," says Liu Fengxi, general manager of OCT Group.

Beijing's tourism plan for 2021-25 has already been formulated. Priority will be given to technical reforms and innovation to boost cultural and tourism infrastructure, enhance consumption and advance new business models, Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism deputy director Wang Yue says.

The goal is to comprehensively upgrade the capital's tourism quality and raise its profile to make it a first-class tourism city internationally, Wang says.

The capital's Tongzhou district is set to develop compelling tours and introduce more quality projects to boost its culture and tourism, according to Zhao Lei, the head of the district.

The district will take over the overspill effect from the Beijing Universal Resort and introduce more distinctive Chinese cultural elements to spice up the visitor experience, including the Grand Canal scenic spot and towns offering local art and special performances, Zhao adds.

The goal is to upgrade Tongzhou into a national model for culture and tourism business integration, as well as a modern place for international tourism consumption, Zhao said at the 2021 Beijing's Sub-Center Cultural Tourism Industry Summit in September.

Investment of 800 billion yuan ($124 billion) will go into the development of Tongzhou over the course of the 2021-25 period, which will undoubtedly offer extensive business applications and opportunities, experts say.

"We'd like to attract more culture and tourism companies to settle in the area and assist in its high-quality development," says Zhao Jun, director of the district's Cultural Tourism Zone, which sits in the southwest of Tongzhou and covers an area of just over 12 square kilometers.

International art performances, exhibitions and sporting goods expos and fairs will be encouraged, as well as cooperation with top culture and tourism industry players from both home and abroad, Zhao Jun says.

People pay more attention to consumption expenditure for culture and tourism when a society becomes better off, according to a tourism economic operation analysis and development forecast report issued by the China Tourism Academy this year.

In the first half of 2021, the number of domestic tourists in China reached 1.87 billion, rising by 100.8 percent year-on-year.

The gross revenue of domestic tourism hit 1.63 trillion yuan, up 157.9 percent from one year earlier.

China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism released its 14th five-year (2021-25) plan in June.

The plan sets out the major tasks of developing culture and tourism, including advancing social civility, establishing artistic creation systems, improving the protection, inheritance and utility of cultural heritage, and enhancing the modern tourism system.

Tourism products will be enriched and improved during the period, with new offerings to be expected, such as national cultural parks, red tourism routes and ice and snow tourism attractions, according to the ministry.

The plan also underlines the development of internet-powered tourism, promotion of smart management of tourist attractions and innovation of tourism-related public services.

"Efforts will be made to provide higher-quality and efficient public cultural services and greater accessibility and sustainability over the next five years," says Yan Xiaodong, an official with the ministry, at a news conference.

Xinhua contributed to the story.