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Top Ten Hottest Events in the Cultural and Tourism Industry in 2024

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2024-12-28


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Editor-in-Chief | Yang Ming
Editor | Liu Kaiye
Source | TravelDaily

For the cultural tourism industry, the numerous thought-provoking hot events and social phenomena experienced in 2024 are all voices that touch the hearts of practitioners. As 2024 draws to a close, the author will chronologically re-examine the hot events that left a deep impression on the public, hoping to explore the development directions and growth paths for the cultural tourism industry in 2025.



In 2024, China's cultural tourism market bloomed with new vitality and charm amidst the intertwining of rationality and sensibility.

Looking back at the hot cultural tourism events of 2024, what still stands out in your memory: was it the


First Batch of National Smart Tourism Immersive Experience New Spaces by Three Ministries and Commissions


On February 22, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly announced the list of the first batch of 42 national smart tourism immersive experience new space cultivation pilot projects (hereinafter referred to as

The first batch of pilot projects by the three ministries covers 22 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities across the country, achieving extensive national coverage. From a provincial perspective, Beijing, Jiangsu, and Shanghai rank in the top three for project numbers, with 7, 5, and 4 projects respectively; followed by Henan with 3; then Hebei, Zhejiang, Shandong, Guangdong, and Sichuan with 2 each; the remaining 13 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities each have 1 project.

These projects exhibit six major characteristics: wide distribution, rich content, advanced technology, diverse carriers, broad dissemination, and significant driving effect. In addition, besides being recognized as smart tourism immersive experience new spaces, the aforementioned 42 smart tourism immersive experience new spaces have also received numerous other honors and brand certifications, including characteristic consumption landmarks, cultural and tourism digital innovation demonstration cases, night cultural and tourism consumption clusters, popular science education bases, and cultural industry demonstration bases.

According to analysis by China Bo Cultural Tourism, the strong IP, high-tech, multi-scene, and highly interactive attributes of smart tourism immersive experience new spaces have given them influencer and communication attributes since their inception. The 42 smart tourism immersive experience new spaces are all widely popular and highly topical projects in various regions. Not only are the offline experiences popular, but they are also

The first batch of pilot projects by the three ministries is not a single product project type, but a comprehensive business format with multiple complex elements. The innovative development of smart tourism immersive experience new spaces reflects an effective response to the market's demand for higher-quality cultural tourism consumption products. It is an effective measure to rapidly increase the market supply of cultural tourism products, an inevitable requirement for promoting the transformation and upgrading of the cultural tourism industry, and a feasible path to expand industry boundaries and enrich the industry ecosystem.


National-Level Tourist Resorts



On June 12, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced the designation of a new batch of 22 tourist resorts as national-level tourist resorts.

National-level tourist resorts, as an important symbol of China's tourism development towards high-end leisure and vacation, represent the highest level of tourist resort products and are another golden brand created by the state, in addition to 5A-rated tourist attractions.

As of now, the 85 recognized national-level tourist resorts are distributed across 29 provinces (including municipalities directly under the central government).

Among the 85 national-level tourist resorts, there are 34 mountain-type tourist resorts, 26 lake-type resorts, 12 coastal leisure resorts, 9 hot spring-type tourist resorts, and 5 theme park-type resorts.

It can be seen that national-level tourist resort types are mainly concentrated in four major categories: mountains, lakes, coasts, and hot springs, with mountain-type tourist resorts holding an absolute advantage, followed by lake-type resorts.

These national-level tourist resorts each have unique characteristics in terms of improving infrastructure, enriching the supply of resort products, and building a comprehensive service system.

Professor Wei Xiang of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Financial and Economic Strategy stated that national-level tourist resorts, while each having unique characteristics and highlights, also share many commonalities, and these commonalities constitute the leverage points for their economic and social functions. In the past, traditional route-based tourism generally manifested as segmented tourism within tourist resorts, but national-level tourist resorts have relatively strong radiating and agglomerating tourism economic functions. Their supply capabilities and comprehensive consumption capabilities in

Furthermore, national-level tourist resorts or resort formats, in stimulating the potential for tourism and vacation consumption, not only bear the responsibility of transforming the previously singular tourism economy, ticket economy, and sightseeing revenue into a part of the greater consumption within the entire urban economy and urban-rural integrated economy, but also bear the important task of driving more indirect and long-tail consumption in the future. This also means that the comprehensive consumption capacity of national-level tourist resorts is unmatched by other tourism formats.

Professor Wei Xiang believes that for national-level tourist resorts to lead new cultural tourism consumption regionally and even nationally, they need to possess three core characteristics: first, leading in ecological environmental protection; second, being able to deeply develop the leisure and vacation economy; and third, being able to drive the synchronous resonance of spiritual and material consumption. Additionally, resort resources are limited, and full consideration must be given to the utilization rate of resort resources and the return on investment and operation. For tourist resorts, more guests are not necessarily better; market regulation methods such as pricing should be used to reasonably control tourists to meet the requirements of resort quality.




《黑神话:悟空》效应


In July, the Shanxi Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism released a video to pre-promote

On August 20,

At the Shanxi 2024 Digital Cultural Tourism Brand Innovation Conference held on August 22, the Shanxi Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism officially launched the "Following Wukong to Tour Shanxi" activity and specific routes, and invited the first group of players who completed "Black Myth: Wukong" to visit Shanxi for free to admire ancient buildings and enjoy local cuisine. On the same day, tourism platforms and agencies launched team-specific routes for "Following Wukong to Tour Shanxi." The Shanxi Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism also collaborated with major hotels and scenic spots to offer discounts on accommodation and tickets, as well as cultural and creative gifts, to attract more domestic and international tourists to Shanxi. In addition, except for the Taiyuan Museum and the Taiyuan Northern Qi Dynasty Mural Museum, other cultural relic sites and museums in Taiyuan have completely canceled the real-name reservation system.

Professor Zeng Bowei, vice president of the China Tourism Association Leisure and Vacation Branch and director of the Research Center for Tourism Economy and Policy at Beijing Union University, stated that the success of "Black Myth: Wukong" has significant implications for the tourism industry, particularly in strengthening cross-border thinking. Although some resources and strengths outside of tourism can divert traffic and empower tourism, the industry should not blindly imitate the model of Shanxi's cultural tourism cooperation with game companies. Instead, it should explore and innovate new forms of cooperation and scenarios based on a thorough understanding of this cross-border thinking.

Professor Li Xinjian, executive dean of the Capital Culture and Tourism Development Research Institute at Beijing Second Foreign Studies University, believes that the combination of "Black Myth: Wukong" with local landscapes demonstrates the integration of virtual games and real-world landscapes, aligning with the logic that game marketing must be interpreted through real-world landscape scenarios to achieve its marketing goals. The combination is mutually beneficial. However, this cross-border marketing has its unique characteristics: the AAA-level game has news value, the modern presentation of traditional culture has news value, and the international dissemination of traditional culture also has news value. The combination with landscapes naturally enhances its dissemination. Moreover, the popularity of the game has prompted various scenic spots to actively promote their relationship with the game, hoping to bring the game's traffic offline.

"Of course, how to more cleverly present these connections within the game is something that needs further exploration. Otherwise, the marketing effect of the game on the development of scenic spots will be greatly reduced or even zero." Professor Li Xinjian said, "Whether the relevance between the real-world scenery and the game background can be more cleverly revealed, and how to present this relevance in an event-based and activity-based manner to create marketing events or social media events for scenic spots, is also worth serious consideration by the industry."


Oriental Selection Announces Dong Yuhui's Departure


On the evening of July 25, Oriental Selection announced the departure of its anchor, Dong Yuhui.

Subsequently, Yu Minhong issued an "Open Letter to Friends of Oriental Selection Shareholders," responding: "To express my gratitude to Yuhui, in addition to the full payment of the promised remuneration, I have requested the board of directors and the remuneration committee, and obtained their consent, to award all the net profits earned during Yuhui's time with the company to him."

Yu Minhong also admitted: "The complex public opinion disputes, coupled with the guidance and rumors spread by a few malicious forces, directly led to a rift between Oriental Selection and Yuhui... Around March, Yuhui and I met many times to discuss future development plans, and we felt that the complex external and internal environment we faced would not only put the company's operations in jeopardy, but also harm the long-term development of both the company and individuals."

In fact, the rift between Dong Yuhui and Oriental Selection had already appeared after the "small essay" incident at the end of last year. At that time, Oriental Selection's stock price plummeted due to the incident, but Dong Yuhui remained silent, allowing the situation to develop. It eventually ended with the departure of then-CEO Sun Dongxu, Dong Yuhui's promotion, and the establishment of the "With Hui Travel" company and brand.

"In fact, the conflict between Dong and Yu is not merely superficial; it reflects the difference between management philosophy and execution standards." Zhou Bo, a streamer from Xinghai Alliance and founder of Hongyi Culture, analyzed that Oriental Selection has always followed the enterprise structure of the leader, Teacher Yu. This traditional patriarchal education and training system management structure is difficult to adapt to the Internet era, where "whoever has the traffic has the absolute right to speak."

Dong Yuhui represents a new type of opinion leader. Therefore, what Dong Yuhui needs is not a traditional management model, but to "take me as the core," "rebuild my team," and "manage it myself." Although "With Hui Travel" is already relatively independent, it may still be subject to some "interference" from Teacher Yu, which may be one of the reasons why Dong complained about not liking live streaming and bringing goods recently.

However, Zhou Bo also has doubts about Dong Yuhui's future after independence: Currently, Dong Yuhui can achieve large traffic conversion, but can he truly achieve replicable models and efficient operation?

"What we hope to see is Dong Yuhui walking a tightrope with a safety rope, not only being able to incubate his independent brand under the platform of Oriental Selection, but also being able to cooperate very amicably with Oriental Selection. This would be invincible. From the current situation, this disintegration will consume many potential opportunities." Zhou Bo said.

The "Beijing Central Axis" is successfully inscribed on the World Heritage List


On July 27, 2024, at the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO held in New Delhi, India, a resolution was adopted to inscribe "The Beijing Central Axis—A Masterpiece of Chinese Ideal City Planning" on the World Heritage List. This brings the total number of World Heritage sites in China to 59.

The World Heritage Committee believes that the "Beijing Central Axis" embodies the theory of traditional Chinese capital city planning and the philosophical ideas of "Zhong" (center) and "He" (harmony), making significant contributions to the history of urban planning worldwide (Criterion 3); the "Beijing Central Axis," as a classic example of the mature stage of the traditional Chinese capital city central axis, represents a unique type in the history of world cities (Criterion 4); and acknowledges the integrity, authenticity, and protection and management status of the "Beijing Central Axis." The World Heritage Committee stated that the authenticity of the "Beijing Central Axis" is reflected in its continuity as the core of the capital city, and Tiananmen Square and its architectural complex are important components of the development of the "Beijing Central Axis," acknowledging the necessity of maintaining its current form.

Li Qun, vice minister of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, stated that the successful inscription is a new starting point. China will earnestly fulfill the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, and will continue to make efforts in aspects such as the protection and repair of cultural relics and buildings, responding to the impact of natural disasters, encouraging community residents to participate, scientifically guiding tourism development, and improving interpretation and display capabilities, to ensure that the "Beijing Central Axis" is properly protected and inherited. China will continue to coordinate the protection and management of World Cultural Heritage, further strengthen exchanges and cooperation with international organizations and contracting states, and leverage the platform of the Asian Cultural Heritage Protection Alliance to contribute to promoting cultural exchanges and mutual learning and building a community with a shared future for mankind.


International Hotel Performance in China Declines Across the Board in Q2


Financial reports released for the second quarter of 2024 by international hotel groups such as Marriott, Hilton, InterContinental, Accor, and Wyndham show that while their revenue growth in international markets is considerable, their performance in the Chinese market has declined without exception, with Marriott even planning to lower its revenue expectations for the full year.

Among them, Marriott's Asia-Pacific region (excluding China) RevPAR increased by 11% year-on-year, while Greater China RevPAR decreased by 4%; InterContinental's global RevPAR increased by 3.2%, while Greater China RevPAR decreased by 7%; Hilton's Asia-Pacific region (excluding China) RevPAR increased by 11%, while Greater China RevPAR decreased by 5%; Wyndham's global hotel RevPAR increased by 2% year-on-year, while Greater China RevPAR decreased by 17%; Accor achieved double-digit year-on-year growth in RevPAR in Southeast Asia, while Greater China RevPAR showed a year-on-year decline (specific data not disclosed).

Regarding the financial report data performance in the second quarter, Accor explained that "Many Chinese tourists are traveling abroad, and its outstanding performance in Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand benefits from the influx of Chinese tourists." Hilton Group stated that "China's active opening up of inbound and outbound exchanges mainly refers to visa exemptions for inbound and outbound travel within Asia. Chinese tourists love to travel, and many people travel abroad, but the growth of inbound tourism in China is not large enough, and flights from Europe, America and other regions are far from sufficient, so it is difficult to make up for the market gap, and market recovery still takes time. But overall, it is not a collapse but a weakness."

Yuan Xueya, chief consultant of Shanghai Starbright Hotel Management Consulting Co., Ltd., analyzed that the performance of international hotel groups in the Chinese market in the second quarter is quite normal—under the general trend of economic downturn and declining consumption in China, the entire hotel industry has an oversupply, and international hotel groups will inevitably find it difficult to remain unaffected. Given the performance of international hotel groups in the first half of 2024, their performance in the second half of the year is expected to be even worse.

In addition, as high-end hotel categories are unable to leverage their advantages, international hotel groups are focusing on the mid-range market to seize market share, and are introducing some unknown small brands from abroad, repackaging them to attract Chinese franchisees. Investors need to think calmly and ask themselves: if this incremental growth requires investment from the brand itself, will this incremental growth continue to increase?

In the view of Professor Li Bin of the Tourism Science College of Beijing Second Foreign Studies University, after a short period of explosive growth last year, the domestic hotel market has gradually returned to normalcy, which is an important factor in the year-on-year decline in the performance of international hotel groups in the Chinese market in the second quarter of this year. This is also related to the current need to boost domestic consumer confidence, the need to restore the business travel market, and the competitive pressure created by the growth of domestic hotel groups.

Looking forward to 2025, international hotel groups will not only need to adapt to the Chinese market, which is entering a period of transformation, but also need to cope with the challenges from domestic Chinese hotel groups. It is expected that international hotel groups will continue to launch new brands to compete with domestic Chinese hotel groups for mid-to-high-end and sinking markets. At the same time, international hotel groups will also "lower their profile" and carry out localized transformation of their brands to meet the accommodation needs of future Chinese business travelers and tourists. Furthermore, if international hotel groups used to expand in the Chinese market in a land-grab style, the future will be a model of stock transformation, hotel rebranding, and franchising. In the long run, China's hotel market remains a super-large-scale market with considerable room for development.


The "Cooling Down" of Internet Celebrity Cities


Since 2023, Jiangmen, Zibo, Rongjiang, Tianjin, Harbin, Kaifeng, Tianshui… various newly emerging internet celebrity tourism cities have begun to appear in front of people at an unprecedented speed, fully demonstrating the potential and vitality of economic recovery and development.

However, based on statistics from multiple sources, during the 2024 National Day holiday, few of the aforementioned internet celebrity tourism cities showed explosive popularity. Many of the previously popular internet celebrity tourism cities, even if their passenger traffic increased during the 2024 National Day holiday, the growth rate has begun to slow down significantly, and some even have a large gap compared to their peak period. In particular, the popularity of Kaifeng and Tianshui has shown an inverted V-shaped curve.

Dong Guanzhi, professor and doctoral supervisor of the Shenzhen Tourism College of Jinan University, believes that the phenomenon of internet celebrity tourism cities is a generational phenomenon under the conditions of mobile internet technology represented by the popularization of smartphones. However, in reality, special forces-style tourism is a shock to economic laws and a challenge to business logic—businesses have to maintain high-intensity operations and provide guarantees for the flood of tourists without making any money, which is an "abnormal" state of social operation that deserves high vigilance from relevant departments.

The lack of explosive popularity of internet celebrity tourism cities during the 2024 National Day holiday, does this mean that the turning point in the development of internet celebrity tourism cities has begun to emerge?

Wang Xiaoyu, a specially appointed expert of the World Tourism Cities Federation, said that China's current consumer market has entered a new stage, with more obvious consumer stratification and a return to rational consumption. However, many so-called "internet celebrity tourism cities" generally have various shortcomings. In addition, although internet celebrity-ization and traffic-ization can indeed open up market entry points for a city's tourism industry, blindly pursuing traffic has also caused the city's tourism industry to fall into the embarrassing situation of "high volume, low sales, only checking in without spending money."

The input of traffic is only the beginning, an activation point. Many cities in China are undergoing a process of transitioning from "passively welcoming traffic" to "actively cultivating demand." In the future, internet celebrity cities should be "all-around" cities with shared benefits for both hosts and guests, and industrial synergy, that is, distinctive tourism IPs, corresponding supporting facilities, perfect public services, and shared spaces for both hosts and guests. Only such internet celebrity cities can be sustainable, and their vitality can be more lasting.


Transportation and Tourism Synergy 3.0 Stage


On November 13, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Ministry of Transport, the National Railway Administration, the Civil Aviation Administration of China, the State Post Bureau, and China State Railway Group jointly selected 68 demonstration cases of integrated development of transportation and tourism in the second batch, involving the integration of facilities, services, and products. The comprehensive integration characteristics are reflected in the distribution pattern, integration carriers, and practice types, reflecting the policy orientation and practical exploration achievements of the state and local governments in promoting the integration of transportation and tourism.

Compared with the 46 typical cases of integrated development of transportation and tourism launched in the first batch in 2023, the second batch of cases have been fully launched in terms of distribution pattern and practice types, marking that since the concept of "integrated development of transportation and tourism" was clearly put forward in 2017, under the guidance of a series of national policies, China's transportation and tourism have entered the era of "comprehensive integration"—the rapid development of new transportation modes centered on intelligent transportation, low-altitude transportation, new energy, and MaaS effectively supports the integration of geographical space and landscape local space, and transportation and tourism have begun to coordinate, synergize, and integrate in terms of facilities and services, functions, products, and industries. Transportation and tourism synergy has entered the transportation and tourism synergy 3.0 stage.

Industry researchers believe that the integration of transportation and tourism, as an important way to achieve two-way promotion between transportation and tourism, is a booster for high-quality development of China's tourism. By improving service quality, optimizing product design, and strengthening infrastructure construction, it can effectively improve residents' travel and tourism experience and promote the high-quality development of the tourism industry. In this process, the collaborative cooperation of governments, enterprises, and all sectors of society is crucial. Only through joint efforts can the deep integration of transportation and tourism be achieved, bringing greater economic and social benefits.

However, it is undeniable that China's integration of transportation and tourism still faces problems such as constraints on tourism transportation infrastructure and services, fierce regional homogenization competition, low product quality, large but limited release of consumption potential, and the need for further market cultivation. Significant efforts are still needed to promote the integration of transportation and tourism from comprehensive integration to deep integration and to build a new development pattern of deep integration of transportation and tourism.


The Ministry of Culture and Tourism's first batch of technical innovation centers officially commenced operation


In November, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism completed the acceptance work for the construction of the first batch of Ministry of Culture and Tourism Technology Innovation Centers. Eleven technology innovation centers completed their construction tasks within one year of the preparatory period and entered formal operation.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism Technology Innovation Centers are positioned in the "technology innovation" and "results transformation and industrialization" links in the innovation chain of the cultural and tourism industry. They are market-oriented, integrating scientific and technological innovation, talent cultivation, and resource integration. Their main tasks are to address the needs of scientific and technological innovation in key areas of culture and tourism, focusing on key technology research and development, providing source technology for industrial development, providing technology innovation and results transformation services for various enterprises, promoting the synergy of production, education, research, and application, and enhancing China's innovation capabilities and core competitiveness in the cultural and tourism field.

The research and development fields of the first batch of technology innovation centers mainly focus on five application scenarios: performing arts equipment, amusement facilities, smart tourism and scenic area construction, art display and interactive experience, and cultural digitalization and intelligence. Leading enterprises in each sub-field serve as the supporting units. After one year of preparation, the technology innovation centers have achieved significant results. All supporting units have established independent internal institutions or wholly-owned subsidiaries, with a total investment of over 100 million yuan, nearly 1,000 management personnel and professional technicians, and over 100 hired experts. In terms of institutional mechanisms, the technology innovation centers have developed many innovative practices, designing management committees, technical committees, councils, and boards of directors according to their own development needs, and establishing strategic leadership cooperation mechanisms and project teams.

A person in charge of the Department of Science, Technology, and Education of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism stated that the next step will be to actively support the various technology innovation centers in improving their operation and management, enhancing their research and development capabilities, further optimizing the personnel structure based on giving full play to the role of co-construction units, and standardizing the annotation work of scientific research and industrialization results. At the same time, we will continue to track and evaluate the operation of the technology innovation centers, and study the establishment of platforms to organize science and technology industry docking activities to promote the transformation and promotion of scientific and technological achievements.


The Return of the Chinese Homeport Cruise Market in its First Year


2024 marks the official return of the Chinese homeport cruise market. Along with this return, changes such as extended booking windows, the popularity of long cruises, the preference for high-end cabins, and pre-booking of onboard activities are quietly taking place.

It is understood that since the first half of this year, more than 20 international cruise ships have been operating in Chinese ports. Among them, the sales of Royal Caribbean's long cruises have reached almost 4-5 times that of short cruises, and the average daily price of long cruises has exceeded that of short cruises for the first time in history, reaching nearly 110% of the price of nearby short cruises. Viking Cruises' "15-day Charming Japan and South Korea Tokyo Line" product stops at 10 ports, including not only the usual Tokyo, Nagasaki, and Fukuoka terminals, but also several niche terminals such as Beppu, Shimizu, and Kochi.

With the steady recovery of the Chinese cruise market, competition among cruise brands is also intensifying. Domestic cruise brands are also continuously launching long-cruise products, relying on accumulated destinations to increase their appeal to tourists.

For example, on November 26, Blue Dream Cruises officially launched a 33-day long cruise product, "Epic Voyage to the West - Blue Dream Song 33-Night Pan-Asia Journey." In addition to Japan and South Korea, this route will also stop at 15 ports in 10 countries and regions, including Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

However, it is not easy for seemingly popular long cruises to achieve higher returns.

Some industry insiders believe that while long cruises may offer higher per-customer prices and more service opportunities, they also come with higher operating costs and risks. Therefore, cruise companies need to balance returns and risks through refined management and market research. At the same time, the customs clearance efficiency of the destination ports is crucial, as is the capacity of ground services and the richness of shore excursion products. In addition, onboard activities should be enriched, and themed long cruises should be launched to meet the needs of specific target markets.

When discussing the key points of designing long cruise products, Liu Jianbin, founder of Shangchuanba, believes that in addition to considering the characteristics of the destination, it is also necessary to choose the appropriate cruise length based on the characteristics of the target customer group, balancing the tourist experience and the company's economic benefits. In addition, route safety, route diversity, and market trends are all key points. He also specifically pointed out "risk management," considering the uncertainty of the shipping market, cruise companies need to use risk management tools to optimize resource allocation.

The above is only an overview of some major events in the tourism industry in 2024. What other major events in the tourism industry have left a deep impression on you, and what analyses and interpretations do you have? Looking forward to 2025, how will new tourism hotspots emerge? Welcome everyone to leave messages in the comments section.



Special Survey on Investment in the Tourism Industry


To gain a deeper understanding of the investment and development of the tourism industry, the China Tourism Academy, in conjunction with the China Amusement Machine and Amusement Park Association and other units, is conducting a special survey on investment in the tourism industry. We sincerely invite all member units and tourism enterprises to participate in the survey.


▲Scan the QR code to fill out the questionnaire



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