Spring Festival revitalizes rural cultural tourism

Villagers are engaged in the art of paper-cut window flowers. [Photo by Zhang Minmin for chinadaily.com.cn]

The 2024 Spring Festival Shandong Rural Culture and Tourism Festival (Zhucheng) kicked off at the Qijishe community in Zhucheng, Weifang, Shandong province.

During the kick-off ceremony, the 2024 Spring Festival Shandong Rural Culture and Tourism Festival presented a lineup of key activities and revealed a series of winter cultural tourism routes. With a focus on showcasing and experiencing folk culture, the festival is dedicated to creating a festive atmosphere and showcasing the colorful rural landscape. 

Concurrently, Zhucheng city also hosted a variety of "Zhucheng-style" rural cultural activities, featuring a diverse array of intangible cultural heritage exhibits and lively artistic performances that drew in numerous residents from the surrounding areas.

Calligraphers write spring couplets for the villagers. [Photo by Zhang Minmin for chinadaily.com.cn]

Zhucheng city will rely on traditional rural fairs, temple fairs, and urban commercial complexes to organize folk art performances and intangible heritage handicraft exhibitions and sales events.  It will also organize grassroots performances and tailor-made village shows based on local customs under the theme "my community, my home". 

In recent years, Zhucheng has identified the development of rural tourism as a pivotal aspect of enhancing rural vitalization. It has launched eight rural cultural and tourism routes, including the dinosaur exploration adventure. 

Additionally, it has built 12 distinctive cultural and tourism projects, such as the Zhushan ecological valley. It is also creating 30 "Zhucheng handcrafted" brands, such as the Zhucheng barbecue and Taolin green tea, and has developed over 100 unique cultural and creative products under the "Longcheng gifts" framework. (Edited by Huang Junyao)