Recently, a video about Chen Ying, director of the Bureau of Culture, Tourism and Sports of Kaifu District in Changsha City, introducing the bountiful tourism resources of Kaifu in fluent English went viral on the Internet with total hits exceeding 10 million.

After three years of the epidemic, during this year’s Spring Festival holiday, the A-level scenic areas in Kaifu District received 2.66 million tourists, a year-on-year increase of 137.53 percent. The tourism revenue exceeded 12.2 million yuan. The average daily number of visitors to Sifangping Night Market topped 50,000, indicating a rapid recovery in the tourism industry.

In order to help tourism practitioners to regain confidence and lead the innovative development of cultural tourism, Kaifu produced a promotional video after a period of preparation following the trend of cadres of the culture and tourism bureaus recommending tourism resources online around the country.

Promoting the cultural tourism resources in front of the camera has shown the cadres’ courage to try and act.

“This shows that our cadres are changing their concept of work to serve people. The director of the Bureau of Culture, Tourism and Sports of Kaifu District introduced its tourism products by shooting a video, attracting wide attention and achieving the goal of regional marketing,” said Song Jianwu, a professor at Renmin University of China.

The promotional video has driven up the popularity of Kaifu’s tourist attractions. But there is still a lot of work to do to make tourists willing to travel here regularly.

“As the Internet has gradually become an important part of people’s life and work, we will increase our efforts to promote cultural tourism resources through the Internet. We will irregularly hold creative activities to create more sparks between the ancient street and the new trend. 

In addition, we will tap the cultural deposits of over a thousand years in Kaifu to boost the competiveness of its tourism market. For example, Xiang embroidery, as a national intangible cultural heritage (ICH) item, has a history of over 2,500 years. As a birthplace of Xiang embroidery, Kaifu should facilitate the development of tourism by taking advantage of Xiang embroidery,” said Chen Ying. 

Next, Kaifu will take the following measures to promote the high-quality integration of culture and tourism across the district.

Protect and utilize immovable cultural relics

There are 124 immovable cultural relics in Kaifu. The renovation of Shen’s Family Old House, Shiwu School and Changsha Cultural Bookstore will be started. Enterprises will be encouraged to develop such new business forms as characteristic homestays, cultural and creative industries and media arts based on these cultural relics.

Provide ICH carriers

Efforts will be made to bring the ICH items into modern production and life, like Shaping Xiang Embroidery, Laodaohe Knives and Scissors, Changsha Flower-drum Opera, Xiang Moxa Incense and bonesetting by traditional Chinese medical skills. This year, the Xiang Embroidery Industry Development Office will be established in Kaifu to help the transformation and upgrading of the Xiang embroidery industry.

Build cultural tourism brands

Mango Town will be expanded to build a unique urban leisure and vacation destination with the characteristics of Hunan Broadcasting System. The quality improvement of Changsha Garden Ecological Park will be fully carried out to create a national 4A scenic area. 

High-quality cultural tourism projects will be introduced to provide new immersive experience scenes and create a national 3A scenic area as well as a national tourism and leisure block. 

New industries like camping, RVs and homestays will be developed. A number of rural tourism areas (sites) will be upgraded. The tourism function of Malanshan Video Cultural and Creative Industrial Park will be strengthened, and the key cultural tourism projects in the park will be recommended for the evaluation of the provincial industrial tourism demonstration site.

Create a 100-li Landscape Gallery

The construction of the Kaifu section of the Xiangjiang River 100-li Landscape Gallery and that of the Liuyang River 100-li Landscape Gallery will be progressed. Relying on the characteristic buildings and lighting facilities on both sides of the Xiangjiang River and the Liuyang River, a unique urban night tour landscape belt with Changsha characteristics will be created. 

The construction of Eyang Mountain Sports Park, the landscape footbridge in Malanshan Yazui Park spanning the Liuyang River and the Laodao River Landscape Gallery will be started. Combined with the development of the Sutuoyuan area, the landscape design along the Laodao River and the design of Sutuoyuan Wetland Park as well as the cultural tourism projects on the theme of the Guan Gong culture of the Laodao River will be highlighted.

Launch boutique tour routes

The Red cultural tourism resources in Kaifu District will be integrated to launch the boutique Red tour route. Chaozong Street will be connected with Xichang Street and Taiping Street to introduce the ancient tour route. The development of Malanshan Video Cultural and Creative Industrial Park will be supported to promote the deep integration of media arts, cultural creativity and tourism products to create a blue tour route. 

The rural tourist spots in Northern Kaifu will be connected to release a green tour route. A colorful tour route covering Hunan Museum, the Red scenic areas in Qingshuitang, Chaozong Street Historical and Cultural Block, Colorful Boxes, Shaping Town of Xiang Embroidery, etc. will be designed. 

Moreover, routes for parent-child tours, study tours and elderly tours will be provided to meet the needs of different customer groups.

Open cultural tourism night markets

Food culture streets and brands will be built. Stallholders will be encouraged to carry out night food festivals at idle space. A high-quality night cultural tourism consumption cluster will be created around Chaozong Street Historical and Cultural Block, the Beichen Delta area, Mango Town, etc. to develop the economy through night shopping. The “night entertainment” cultural tourism consumption in Changsha Window of the World, Changsha Concert Hall, Xiaoma Talk Show, etc. will be driven.

Support integrated development of enterprises

Relying on Malanshan Video Cultural and Creative Industrial Park, Yuehu Cultural and Creative Town and Beichen Cultural and Creative Industrial Park, well-known cultural tourism enterprises at home and abroad will gravitate to Kaifu. New cultural and creative enterprises providing immersive digital art experience will be cultivated to build a national cultural and creative hub.

Diversify cultural tourism products through technology

Focusing on digital cultural tourism products, digital technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence, laser holography, virtual reality and augmented reality will be applied in the R&D of cultural tourism products. The strategy of “cultural tourism plus metaverse” will be implemented to launch online metaverse digital products and produce excellent cases of metaverse application scenes. The virtual tourism and real experience will be organically combined to create new models of cultural tourism.

Facilitate integration of agriculture, culture and tourism

The water ecological environment in the middle and lower reaches of the Jinzhu River and the Chujia Lake will be mainly improved. The construction of beautiful rural demonstration areas will be advanced to build a number of beautiful and livable villages and promote the development of agriculture, culture and tourism.

The authorities of Kaifu District have been making continuous efforts to attract tourists, in a bid to help the cultural tourism prosper.