In 2023, the construction work of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's Technology Innovation Center was fully launched. The center focuses on the new productive forces and core competitiveness in China's cultural and tourism field, providing services ranging from R&D to pilot testing and product development for various enterprises, aiming to bridge the "last mile" of industrialization.

To date, 11 Ministry of Culture and Tourism Technology Innovation Centers have successfully completed their construction phase and have entered formal operation. These centers bring together nearly a thousand managers and professional technicians, with a total investment exceeding 100 million yuan.

The first batch of established technology innovation centers have R&D areas including performing arts equipment, amusement facilities, smart tourism and scenic area construction, art display and interactive experience, cultural digitalization and intelligence, etc., mainly targeting typical application scenarios in the cultural and tourism industry. After implementation, their technical support and leading role in the industry are becoming increasingly apparent. At the same time, the selection work for the second batch of Ministry of Culture and Tourism Technology Innovation Centers has been launched.

This newspaper selects two already established technology innovation centers to showcase their characteristics, application areas, and implementation effects.

OCT Cultural Tourism

Fastening a 'Safety Belt' for Large-Scale Amusement Facilities

In theme parks, amusement facilities can be seen, heard, and interact with tourists, they can be monitored, warned, and data can be viewed from the 'black box'...

Recently, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism Technology Innovation Center for Theme Park Facilities Integration and Intelligent Management has officially commenced operation. Focusing on both innovation and safety, the center's numerous achievements may update the "power valve" and fasten the "safety belt" for more than 25,000 large-scale amusement facilities in China, allowing tourists to have fun and peace of mind.

Since its establishment in August 2023, the center has focused on solving industry pain points, aiming to use technological innovation to drive the iterative upgrading of domestic theme park amusement facilities, improve the safety monitoring and maintenance management level of amusement facilities, and optimize the overall quality of theme parks.

“We rely on Shenzhen OCT Cultural Tourism Technology Group Co., Ltd. to integrate cutting-edge technology into the R&D of amusement facilities and the construction of theme parks, providing tourists with a more novel, interesting, and safe experience.” A relevant person in charge of the center introduced that the research and development of two new technologies, the interactive performance robot system and virtual reality scene application, are underway.

The interactive performance robot system has completed the trial production and functional testing of the intelligent walking prototype, which can be applied to indoor trackless vehicles, park intelligent shuttle vehicles, unmanned sightseeing tourist trains, and other amusement facility projects, and can even be extended to intelligent factory material transportation and other links. In addition, the robot arm prototype test has entered motion simulation training, and can be widely applied to park interactive amusement facilities in the future.

The virtual reality scene application uses large-space virtual reality technology, as well as head-mounted displays and haptic feedback devices, to highly restore real and historical scenes, allowing tourists to be deeply immersed in virtual time and space. Currently, the immersive virtual reality interactive tour system "Dinosaur Wonder World" is a sub-project of the Yunnan Dinosaur Valley's "Dinosaurs Have Arrived" national tour exhibition, and has been implemented in OCT Creative Park and Guangzhou, Huizhou, and other places.

To solve the problems of virtual reality scene positioning and tracking technology, slight delays in the system, and collisions in multi-user interaction, the center, together with co-construction units such as China Unicom and Shenzhen Technology University, has overcome technical bottlenecks from aspects such as network transmission and software algorithms, making tourists' entry into virtual reality scenes smoother and more natural.

“The integration of new technology research and amusement facilities can make the gameplay of amusement equipment more diverse, enhancing the tourists' experience and replay rate.” The person in charge said.

Safety is the lifeline of amusement facilities. In the operation of traditional amusement facilities, safety monitoring and warning technologies are relatively limited, and the discovery and handling of equipment failures often rely on manual inspection and experience judgment, making it difficult to monitor the equipment's operating status in real time and accurately. To this end, the center has launched research on the "Safety Monitoring and Warning of Large-Scale Amusement Facilities (Black Box 2.0)" project.

What are the advantages of Black Box 2.0? The relevant person in charge of the center introduced that most amusement facility data acquisition is directly read from its own control and detection system, requiring intrusion into the original equipment's system, which has certain risks and is not conducive to product maintenance. Black Box 2.0 fully considers the equipment's implementation requirements, using an external method for data monitoring and acquisition, and through extensive testing and comparison with the original data, it has finally found a win-win solution to ensure data accuracy and facility implementation and maintenance.

In the next stage, the center will gather talents from industry, academia, research, and application, focusing on the intelligence of amusement facilities, "one-machine-multi-function" safety detection, and "super-movie-level" virtual reality visual quality, continuously supplying new products and strengthening safety lines.

Convenient Entry Creates Efficient Tourism Experience

Online ticket purchase with discounts and without certificates, certificate-free scanning, face recognition entry... From December 2024, the Shenyang Palace Museum began to provide convenient entry services without certificates for specific groups such as college students and Shenyang residents. At the same time, Fujian Province has also completed the access of public data for specific groups such as disabled people, social security payers, doctors, nurses, and primary and secondary school students, and will gradually implement it in scenic areas.

Shenyang Palace Museum Provides Convenient Entry Service Without Certificates for Specific Groups

Specific groups can quickly complete the ticket purchase and entry process without carrying special certificates. The proposer of this plan is the Ministry of Culture and Tourism Technology Innovation Center for Scenic Area Transaction Data Elementatization.

This center was launched in August 2023 and officially approved for operation after passing the acceptance inspection by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in November 2024. The center takes promoting technological innovation and industrial development as its core mission, providing innovative services for the incubation, cultivation, and development of scenic areas, and is committed to solving key industry problems such as data quality issues, algorithm universality issues, and demand matching issues for the value realization of scenic area transaction data elements.

During the construction period of more than one year, the center has launched 7 projects, published 6 papers, applied for 4 invention patents, completed 1 enterprise standard approval, and organized the application for 2 provincial-level projects. Based on the independent R&D capabilities of the relying unit, Fujian Piao Fu Tong Information Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Piao Fu Tong"), the center has carried out the R&D of three types of data element products: productization, scenarization, and assetization.

How to make data elements land in practical scenarios is the direction of our exploration." Ticket payment founder and center director Su Wansheng introduced that scenic spots, cultural tourism enterprises and governments have different needs for data value, and how to mine data value and accurately match the needs of all parties is a major challenge.

Initially, the center was very optimistic about the direction of data element asset-ization, but after investing in research and development, it found that the conditions in various aspects were not mature, so the center simultaneously developed the data element productization path, focusing on two core scenarios: scenic spot business decision-making and operation services, integrating diversified data analysis and visualization tools, including 6 digital products and three product forms, to provide customers with comprehensive, intuitive and efficient data empowerment.

Su Wansheng frankly admitted that the market transformation of data element productization was not so obvious in the later stage. "In the next six months, we explored data element scenario-ization, namely the application of convenient entry without certificates for specific groups of people in scenic spots. Not long ago, the "Tourism Scenic Spot Convenient Entry and Passenger Flow Monitoring" built by the center was included in the list of "Key Contact Demonstration Scenarios (first batch) of the National Data Bureau."

The convenient entry solution for specific groups of people in scenic spots effectively connects tourism data, provides identity authentication services for tourists, achieves efficient and convenient tourism on the basis of ensuring data security, and provides social care for specific groups of people. At the same time, based on accurate identity judgment, marketing activities can also be carried out for specific groups of people, such as summer