Deep integration of culture and tourism becomes an important trend

　　Over 70% of surveyed young people value the "cultural flavor" of travel

　　Choosing Dongying City in Shandong Province as a travel destination is a niche choice, but Chen Xiaoyang, a post-95s young woman working in Beijing, was fully satisfied with this trip. What attracted her to this city was not only the Yellow River estuary but also the Shengli Oilfield, which has a history of more than 60 years. Walking into Dongying is like "falling into" a large oil-themed real-life amusement park; there is no need to deliberately "create scenery," as oil-pumping "nodding donkeys" can be seen everywhere along the roadsides, and large oil storage tanks can occasionally be spotted. The old town with its industrial style instantly stirred up images in Chen Xiaoyang's mind——for decades, generation after generation of oil workers built a city on the saline-alkali land. She was attracted by this city's distinctive "calling card." "This special humanistic atmosphere cannot be felt in other cities," Chen Xiaoyang said.

　　Ding Ling, who studies at East China Jiaotong University, is recently preparing to make Luoyang, Henan, her next travel destination. In addition to considerations of distance and price, the city's own cultural stories and the line "Only the peony is truly national beauty; when it blooms, the whole capital is stirred" made her yearn for this ancient capital of thirteen dynasties, which combines historical heritage and natural scenery.

　　Loving a journey filled with a strong "cultural flavor" is not a unique hobby of Chen Xiaoyang and Ding Ling. With cultural tourism booming in various places recently, China Youth Daily · China Youth School Media launched a questionnaire survey targeting young people, mainly university students, and collected a total of 1,738 valid questionnaires. The survey results show that 46.89% of respondents like traveling very much, and 36.02% like traveling somewhat. When choosing travel destinations, 71.29% of respondents value the history and culture of the destination, such as historical accumulation, traditional culture, and local customs.

　　Over 80% of respondents enjoy the sense of fulfillment brought by cultural experience tourism

　　For Long Yifei, who studies at a university in Shanghai, one of the important purposes of travel is to satisfy his photography hobby and preserve memories of the journey through photos. Beautiful scenery and buildings he has never seen before always attract him. When visiting the ancient city of Kashgar in Xinjiang, he, who grew up in the south, saw for the first time architecture with the ethnic flavor of northwestern China; large blue and green decorative blocks on houses and buildings outlined the local cultural characteristics, and he simply could not stop pressing the camera shutter.

　　The China Youth School Media survey shows that, not satisfied with merely touring mountains and waters, 80.55% of respondents believe that "cultural tourism" lies not only in "travel" but also in "culture," and that cultural experiences can enhance the sense of fulfillment from travel.

　　Besides historical and cultural heritage, the cultural experience Chen Xiaoyang cares about also includes local customs. Once, while taking a taxi in Dongying, the driver heard that Chen Xiaoyang was going to a well-known mooncake shop in the Shengli Oilfield residential area to buy mooncakes and asked whether she was from out of town. "He told me that buying mooncakes at that shop required queuing, and that it was already quite late and the shop was about to close." What surprised Chen Xiaoyang was that the driver took out his phone and said he could check the surveillance footage for her to see whether the shop was still open. "It turned out that the driver's family ran a store opposite the mooncake shop, and he could see the situation of the shop across the street through his own surveillance. He also asked me what flavor of mooncakes I liked and had his store clerk go queue up for me first." These warm gestures made her deeply feel the human warmth of the "oil city." "People who work and live in the oilfield basically all know each other. They greet everyone as if they were old neighbors, and toward me, a tourist, they were like relatives or friends of their own family, always wanting to help me proactively."

　　"With improved education levels and ever-broadening horizons, contemporary young people increasingly value cultural experiences and are better able to appreciate and understand the value contained in different regional cultures," said Professor Zhou Yongbo, head of the tourism management discipline at Soochow University and vice dean of the Dongwu Think Tank. He noted that the deep integration of culture and tourism has become an important trend, and that culture and tourism are more closely connected, which has further stimulated young people's enthusiasm for exploring the world in depth. "Facing this trend, tourist destinations and practitioners should strive to provide tourists with richer and deeper cultural tourism experiences to meet the cultural value needs of young tourists. At the same time, we should strengthen historical and humanistic education and dissemination, and further raise public awareness of the value of cultural heritage and traditional culture."

　　Over 90% of respondents value immersive experiences during travel

　　Long Yifei once experienced an immersive interactive performance in Xiamen called "Xiamen Happy Event." Participants had to put on Republic of China-era costumes and, like playing a murder mystery game, play one of the roles such as journalist, dancer, police officer, or architect, taking part in the performance of multiple chapters. "This play tells the story of the liberation of Xiamen. The entire set and stage design recreated that era, allowing participants to be deeply immersed in that period of history." Being able to learn about a period of history through firsthand experience while also wearing beautiful costumes and taking photos made Long Yifei feel that this innovative format strongly appeals to young people.

　　The China Youth School Media survey shows that 92.69% of respondents value immersive experiences during travel: 23.88% said they value them very much, 40.62% value them somewhat, and 28.19% value them moderately. 67.61% of respondents believe that immersive tourism can help people better understand a city's history or culture; 75.72% believe that personally integrating into the local cultural environment makes the experience more genuine and the impression deeper; and 62.20% believe that interaction and experience offer a stronger sense of novelty and are more interesting.

　　The immersive travel that Su Yue, who studies at a university in Tianjin, likes involves wearing clothing suited to local characteristics in different cities, dressing up as a local, and wandering through streets and alleys taking photos. In Yanji, Jilin, she puts on Korean ethnic clothing for photos; in Xi'an, Shaanxi, she dresses herself from head to toe as a woman of the High Tang to experience a "time-travel tour"; in Qujing, Yunnan, she bought a shawl with ethnic characteristics, draped it over herself, and strolled the streets. In Su Yue's view, dressing up allows her to better immerse herself in the local cultural atmosphere and "feel the local history and culture from the outside in." Each time she takes photos in a set of clothing, she learns the story behind it. For example, when wearing Tang-style hanfu to the Shaanxi History Museum and standing before Tang dynasty artifacts, she becomes more immersed and focused, quietly pondering the stories that happened in that era.

　　Young people's love for immersive tourism is inseparable from the continuous introduction of innovative tourism formats by many tourist destinations. The large-scale performance "Romance of Songcheng" at the Songcheng Scenic Area in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, left a deep impression on Su Yue. "Audience members can not only follow the performers to experience the plot immersively in the ancient city, but also change into a set of clothes and treat themselves as extras, walking beside the protagonists as if they themselves were in that era and were also characters in the story." This experience made Su Yue feel exhilarated and also gave her a better understanding of the historical stories told in the performance.

　　Zhou Yongbo observed that Chinese traditional costumes have become a "favorite" of contemporary young tourists and have thus become a "traffic code" for achieving cultural tourism prosperity in various places. "Chinese traditional costumes are a major entry point for tourists to step into 'immersion' during travel. By wearing traditional clothing, tourists can integrate more deeply into cultural tourism scenes and local life, thereby gaining a more authentic tourism experience. This trend reflects tourists' pursuit of diversity and participation in tourism experiences." In Zhou Yongbo's view, the cultural tourism industry can take "Chinese traditional costumes" as a starting point, incorporate metaverse thinking, focus on content development, properly use advanced technologies such as VR, AR, and AI, and develop more interactive and participatory immersive tourism projects to enhance the cultural, playful, interactive, and experiential qualities of existing cultural tourism scenes and improve tourists' sense of immersive experience.

　　Young people hope culture will give cities more distinctive "calling cards"

　　When asked what aspects they hope cultural tourism in various places will improve, respondents hoped for further progress in building tourism calling cards (58.80%), developing cultural value (66.80%), immersive interactive experiences (58.00%), innovative development (58.98%), the quality of scenic area landscapes or experiences (62.43%), and service quality (51.09%).

　　As a native of Ganzhou, Jiangxi, Ding Ling hopes the local culture and tourism bureau can promote the area more based on local historical and cultural stories. "'One Ganzhou city, an entire Song dynasty history.' Ganzhou was one of the 36 major cities during the Song dynasty and has long been known as the 'Song City of Jiangnan' and the 'Museum of Song City.'" Ding Ling mentioned that as young people's attention to traditional culture increases, national trends such as "hanfu experiences" and "ancient-style live-action murder mystery games" will attract even more attention. "I hope my hometown's cultural tourism can start from history and culture, and rely on classical culture to design immersive cultural tourism experiences such as 'stove-boiled tea' and 'curved water floating cup banquets,' so that more people can feel 'Song-style romance' in Ganzhou."

　　"A city must have its own characteristics and a unique urban IP," Chen Xiaoyang said. In her impression, successful cases from some tourist cities have often been "replicated." But in her view, good service methods can be replicated, but the cultural core of a place cannot. "If excellent experiences and cases are blindly copied, uniform landscapes and buildings will find it hard to retain tourists." She hopes various places can tap into their own cultural characteristics. "During this year's Spring Festival, Chaoshan Yingge dance and Fujian deity procession activities also became popular; these are their local most traditional customs." In her eyes, these distinctive cultures hidden in folk customs are the most fascinating cultural tourism resources.

　　In Zhou Yongbo's view, in today's world with increasingly developed various media, cultural characteristics have become a key scarce resource for tourist destinations. "China has a vast territory and abundant resources and many ethnic groups. Various traditional cultures and folk activities have strong appeal for contemporary tourists. Across the country, various folk cultures have been effectively protected and inherited, enabling us to display local characteristics through rich and colorful traditional cultural activities and provide people with distinctive tourism experiences. In cultural tourism development, we should continue to deeply explore and utilize local traditional cultural resources, base ourselves on inheritance, uphold tradition while innovating, present the charm of local culture to tourists, and enhance the uniqueness and attractiveness of tourist destinations."

　　Zhou Yongbo suggested that relevant departments and practitioners in the cultural tourism industry can support the development of culturally rich tourism from both the supply and demand sides. "Centering on the goal of deep integration of culture and tourism, local governments should introduce policies that boost the integrated development of culture and tourism. On the supply side, they should focus on increasing funding input and talent training, strengthen supervision and regulation of the tourism market, and ensure the quality and safety of tourism activities; on the demand side, they need to guide tourists to pay more attention to the cultural significance, aesthetic implications, and spiritual civilization value of tourism landscapes and projects, and accelerate the formation of a development pattern in which the supply side and demand side mutually reinforce each other. Tourism practitioners should vigorously develop and promote tourism products and services rich in cultural content, improve practitioners' humanistic literacy and people-oriented awareness, and provide tourists with warm tourism experiences."