Editor-in-Chief | Yang Ming
Editor | Jing Xiangyuan
After decades of rapid development, China's cultural tourism industry has entered a new phase. In this phase, cultural tourism investment is no longer simply the accumulation of resources, but requires in-depth exploration of cultural connotations, innovation in tourism experiences, and the achievement of sustainable project development. Based on current trends in the cultural tourism market, this article will outline the directions for cultural tourism projects worth investing in in 2025, providing developers with some valuable references.
High-quality upgrading projects for county-level tourism
In the past process of cultural tourism development, county-level tourism has faced many difficulties. Although new projects are constantly being launched and old scenic spots are continuously being improved, county-level tourism has always been in a lukewarm state, presenting a predicament of "disorganized form and spirit". This is mainly because county-level tourism often over-relies on the improvement of natural resources and cultural attractions, while neglecting its own true advantages. In fact, for the vast majority of counties, their core competitiveness lies in their unique folk culture and local characteristics. These elements, which carry the unique historical memories of the local area, are what tourists truly love. Therefore, the future development of county-level tourism will focus on excavating and enhancing these localized characteristics, creating comprehensive tourism projects with concentrated folk customs, local characteristics, collection and distribution, and night tours. For county-level tourism improvement projects, cultural tourism investors in 2025 can focus on the following directions: firstly, historical or folk streets with local characteristics, improving the immersion and experience of tourists through transformation and upgrading; secondly, characteristic homestays and resort hotels, providing high-quality accommodation experiences; thirdly, parent-child amusement facilities and research and study tourism projects, meeting the needs of family tourists; fourthly, relying on the rich agricultural resources of the county, developing rural tourism projects with themes such as picking, sightseeing, and science popularization...
Cultural theme innovation and experience projects for city tourism
Tourist cities such as Xi'an, Chengdu, and Chongqing, their tourism focus is within the city, and investment opportunities are rich and diverse. With the evolution of the tourism market, tourists' consumption needs have shifted from shallow sightseeing to deep experience, and the demand for cultural theme innovation and experience projects has been increasing.
Such cities should fully utilize their own rich cultural heritage to develop IPs or innovative amusement products. For example, Xi'an can combine the "Tomb Raider" IP with the Terracotta Army to create unique tourism products; create innovative large-scale theaters to bring tourists a shocking cultural performing arts experience. At the same time, the booming development of the cultural and creative industry and the Hanfu industry has also provided new ideas for city tourism. Various tourism products and service projects derived from it, such as cultural and creative souvenirs and Hanfu experience activities, can greatly enrich tourists' tourism experience.
Xi'an "Tomb Raider" Real Scene
Lightweight cultural tourism performances combined with food also have considerable potential. Such projects have relatively small investment scale, low implementation difficulty, and high network effect, which can attract more tourists to participate. In addition, LBE immersive large-space projects (regional entertainment venues), with their unique immersive experience, allow tourists to experience the charm of urban culture firsthand, becoming a type of cultural experience resource that is easy to obtain investment. Through the development of these projects, city tourism can better meet tourists' pursuit of in-depth experiences, further enhancing the city's tourism attractiveness and competitiveness.
Ecological resources and health preservation, sports, and pet entertainment projects
The protective development of ecological resources and the integration of multiple industries have opened up new directions for cultural tourism investment. Mountain areas, forests, grasslands, oceans, lakes, and wetlands are rich and diverse ecological resources, and combined with health preservation and outdoor sports tourism and leisure projects, a series of characteristic tourism projects can be created.
In the field of health preservation, forest health preservation bases and traditional Chinese medicine health preservation tourism projects have emerged. Forest health preservation bases utilize the natural environment of forests to provide health preservation, vacation, and rehabilitation services; traditional Chinese medicine origin areas can fully utilize traditional Chinese medicine resources, combined with traditional martial arts, healing, and medicinal meals, to develop tourism projects of varying lengths to meet people's pursuit of healthy living.
In terms of outdoor sports, mountain scenic areas can build rock climbing venues, mountain bike trails, and off-road race tracks, introduce high-altitude zip lines, suspension bridges, jungle flying descents, and other high-altitude adventure projects, and develop low-altitude economic projects such as mountain helicopter sightseeing to attract outdoor sports enthusiasts and increase secondary consumption in scenic areas. At the same time, water sports clubs can also allow tourists to enjoy the fun of water sports in lakes and oceans.
The rise of the pet economy in the cultural tourism industry cannot be ignored. Pet parks and pet-themed hotels are gradually becoming popular with tourists. Tourists can interact closely with cute animals in pet parks and experience different kinds of fun, bringing new hotspots to cultural tourism investment. When paying attention to such projects, investors should pay attention to the protection of ecological resources, ensure the sustainable development of the projects, and constantly innovate to create tourism products with characteristics and attractiveness to meet the needs of different tourist groups.
Ice and snow tourism + new products and new scene integration projects
China's ice and snow tourism has unique development opportunities. Although the economic development of some northern regions is relatively lagging, leading to relatively lagging development and operation levels of ice and snow tourism, the ice and snow sports consumption market is gradually forming, and the door to ice and snow tourism is accelerating.
In addition to traditional skiing and skating projects, new projects such as ice and snow viewing experiences and land ice and snow sports are increasingly popular with the public. The deep integration of the "ice and snow +" model has given birth to many innovative tourism products, such as "ice and snow + amusement", "ice and snow + culture", and "ice and snow + technology". For example, building ice and snow theme parks, combining amusement facilities with ice and snow elements to provide tourists with a fun and exciting experience; combining local cultural characteristics to hold ice and snow festival activities, allowing tourists to experience the charm of culture in the ice and snow; using technological means to enhance the fun and interactivity of ice and snow projects, such as virtual reality (VR) ice and snow experiences.
When investors are involved in ice and snow tourism projects, they should focus on the innovation of products and scenes and continuously improve the tourists' sense of experience. By tapping the potential of ice and snow tourism, creating diversified ice and snow tourism products, promoting the vigorous development of the ice and snow tourism industry, and meeting tourists' desire to explore the ice and snow world.
Tourism projects supported by the popularity of film and television, games, etc.
The driving role of culture on tourism is becoming increasingly prominent, and the popularity of film and television and game works has brought new development opportunities for tourism projects. For example, the popularity of "Black Myth: Wukong" has boosted tourism in Shanxi, the Shanghai Museum's Ancient Egypt exhibition has driven nearly 10 billion yuan in cultural tourism consumption in Shanghai, and popular online projects such as "Following the Regiment Leader to Fight the County" and "Exile to Ningguta" have also attracted a large number of tourists.
Investors can learn from these successful cases, delve deeper into local culture, and closely integrate it with tourism projects. By integrating elements such as intangible cultural heritage, performing arts, technology, and food, unique and attractive cultural and tourism integration projects can be created. For example, developing tourism routes in film and television shooting locations allows tourists to experience the scenes in the works firsthand; using game IPs to create theme parks or immersive experience projects attracts game enthusiasts.
At the same time, cross-border innovation in scenic areas is also an effective way to enhance attractiveness. For example, transforming traditional rail trains into sci-fi themed research and study experience products or DIY products provides tourists with a new experience; combining AI technology to create winter landscapes for scenic areas achieves differentiated development of scenic areas. When grasping these types of projects, investors should pay attention to the deep integration of culture and tourism, make full use of popular cultural elements, create sustainable tourism projects, and achieve innovative upgrades in the cultural and tourism industry.
The cultural and tourism investment field in 2025 is full of opportunities and challenges. Investors need to keep up with market trends, accurately grasp the investment points of various projects, pay attention to product innovation, quality improvement, and resource integration to meet the increasingly diversified and personalized needs of tourists. Only in this way can success be achieved in the wave of cultural and tourism investment, injecting new vitality into the development of the cultural and tourism industry.
Special Research on Investment in the Tourism Industry
To gain a deeper understanding of the development of investment in 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 research activity on investment in the tourism industry, and sincerely invites all member units and tourism enterprises to participate in the research.
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