A smart lens on the past

World Heritage sites and travel leaders at a Beijing summit found common ground: the future of cultural tourism lies in innovation, with China at the heart of that transformation.

The ticket sellers at Jinshanling Great Wall, 130 kilometers northeast of central Beijing, faced the same challenge every day. Around 100,000 foreign visitors passed through the ticketing station each year, and nearly every single one needed help understanding the difference between ticket options.

Their only tool was a smartphone. They typed in Chinese, translated the text word by word into English, and read it aloud. One visitor after another. The line grew longer. The summer heat became stifling. Everyone was exhausted.

Then a pair of augmented reality glasses changed everything.

Wu Fei, CEO of the Beijing-based AR company LLVision, showed up at the ticket booth with a pair of translation glasses earlier this year. A seller put them on and instantly saw translated questions and answers appear in his field of vision. He answered inquiries in real time. Later, tourists borrowed the glasses themselves, and used an AI-powered Q&A system to learn about the Great Wall's history as they climbed its ancient steps.

"The problem wasn't that the technology didn't exist," Wu said at the Beijing Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit, hosted by the World Tourism Cities Federation in early June.

"It was that nobody had put it in the right place at the right time."

At the meeting, a consensus emerged from a diverse group of panelists that the future of cultural tourism belongs to invisible technology that quietly serves the story, the heritage and the human connection. The best technology, they argued, is the kind travelers hardly notice.

Profound transformation

The timing of this consensus was no coincidence. The global tourism industry is undergoing a profound transformation.

An Li, vice-president of Airbnb China, says travelers are moving beyond traditional "check-in and photo" tourism in search of more immersive experiences.

"The industry has entered an era where we compete not just on quality, but on creativity," she says.

Airbnb's data from just before the 2026 FIFA World Cup showed that more than half of bookings were made by groups of family members and friends, turning the tournament into a shared social experience.

Seventy percent of visitors to the United States for the event also planned multicity itineraries rather than staying in one destination, An says, describing the trend as "portal travel".

For heritage sites like the Summer Palace in Beijing and Petra in Jordan, this shift creates a delicate balancing act between offering deep, immersive experiences and preserving the very places people have come to see.

Ma Wenxiang, director of the Summer Palace, says her team has built a comprehensive digital monitoring system for the sprawling imperial garden, which contains 70,000 square meters of ancient architecture, more than 38,800 movable relics, and over 1,600 ancient trees.

Three restoration centers use technology to give each artifact a "health check". The Xumilingjing site, a significant Buddhist architectural complex, has been digitally restored to its former glory.

Ma says the technology serves not only conservation but also accessibility. With inbound tourism to the site up 50 percent from last year — nearly 400,000 visitors so far this year — the Summer Palace has deployed an AI-powered digital customer service system supporting 75 languages. Multilingual translation devices are now widely available across the grounds.

The goal, Ma explains, is to remove barriers without inserting screens between visitors and the landscape.

Adnan Al-Sawa'ir, chairman of the board of commissioners of the Petra region development and tourism authority, describes Petra — the ancient city carved into rose-red rock — as a "living testament to human creativity and adaptation".

"Technology is a tool to enhance understanding, not a replacement for direct interaction with the heritage site," he says.

"Our goal is not to add more screens to the visitor's journey. It is to keep the technology as invisible as possible."

Petra now uses digital twin technology, 3D scanning and data analytics to monitor risks and anticipate challenges. During the "Petra by Night" experience, light projections on the Treasury bring the Nabataean civilization back to life without physically altering the ancient facade. The rock remains the star, he adds. The technology is simply the stagehand.

But even the most sophisticated technology cannot save a project that lacks emotional authenticity, according to Zhao Chongyi, executive director of Puy du Fou Asia.

Puy du Fou, the legendary French historical spectacle company, entered China several years ago.

"Many Chinese travelers have extraordinarily rich experience in appreciating cultural events," Zhao says.

"They have seen world-class performances and exhibitions around the globe. They can tell whether something is truly excellent, sincere, deep and worth their time."

Simply importing an international concept or relying on visual spectacle is no guarantee of success in China, she adds. What does work is authenticity.

"The core of cultural narrative is not grandeur, but sincerity," she says. "The best use of technology isn't to draw attention to itself. It helps people enter the story naturally, believe it, and feel the emotion."

A show that breathes

Zhao's metaphor found a practical home in Macao. Catarina Lio, senior vice-president of brand marketing at MGM, wanted the show Macau 2049 to breathe — to evolve with its audience rather than remain frozen in time.

"It begins like a baby, and it continues to grow," she says.

Macau 2049 is a resident production, but she refuses to treat it as a fixed product. The performance integrates eight different forms of intangible cultural heritage, with local villagers — inheritors of these traditions — taking the stage instead of professional actors to present their own culture.

Technology provides the spotlight, she says, but people remain at the heart of the performance.

Lio also challenged a common assumption in the industry.

"We keep hearing that the younger generation has no interest in cultural heritage," she says. "But the key is whether we, as developers, are speaking their language and engaging them on their own terms."

She notes that 500 people from 20 countries came together to create Macau 2049. The goal, she says, is to give culture a second life.

Back at Jinshanling, the ticket seller is still at his post. The line still forms. The heat still bears down. But now, when a visitor from across the world steps up to his window, he hands them a pair of glasses and answers their questions. No translation apps. No awkward typing. Just a conversation.

"The purpose of technology is not to replace humans," Wu of LLVision says. "It is to help people live better lives."