China's cultural tourism boom shows how tech can transform travel

Tourists from Spain take a selfie at Yuyuan Garden Mall in Shanghai, east China, July 21, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

China's cultural tourism sector is booming. The nation's substantial tourism market has gained prominence through deep reforms, growing appeal to overseas visitors, internationally competitive exhibitions and a wide range of high-quality product offerings as research and development investments accelerate.

As summer vacation nears its end, several key takeaways deserve attention.

First, the sector's growth stems from increased technology use. Major landmarks, such as Shougang Park in Beijing, are deploying cutting-edge technologies and transforming legacy destinations into dramatic new experiences. The park is emblematic of China's balance between surging tourist demand and its expanding hospitality infrastructure. This includes extensive rail networks and highways that connect curious minds to China's rural areas and vibrant cultural centers. Beyond infrastructure improvements, China's push to expand visa-free entry for tourists marks another major step toward attracting global visitors and projecting soft power. This coordinated approach – combining technology and physical infrastructure with welcoming policies – reflects China's comprehensive strategy to boost its cultural tourism sector.

The idea of a booming cultural tourism sector is not new. In recent years, Chinese policymakers have made transformative gains in revitalizing the country's service sector offerings, evident in the diverse array of cuisine options, integration of cultural heritage activities in cities such as Shenzhen, and efforts to help local businesses maximize their international exposure. This business engagement is critical for optimizing a country's cultural tourism sector: Evidence from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations shows that countries with varied development trajectories and distinct product offerings have become magnets for international tourists. Yet, China's development goes many steps further: From planned space tourism initiatives to AI-enhanced cultural experiences, high-tech interventions are front and center in the sector's development.

The growth in international traffic is undeniable. Since early 2025, inbound and outbound visitor levels have shown a significant uptick, exceeding prior years. Strong performance during cultural festivals and holiday seasons demonstrates the sector's potential and encourages further technological innovation. The incentives are clear: Domestic travel alone has grown by leaps and bounds to reach nearly 330 million trips in the first half of 2025. Rapid upgrades in China's hospitality sector can help meet this demand as hotels embrace opportunities across diverse fields, from cultural services to recreation and commerce. Now, as cultural hubs and technological innovation centers witness expansion, China is better positioned to broaden the penetration of next-generation technology interventions across tourism offerings.

The stage is set: China's consumer spending is on the rise, with retail services growth hovering well above 5.2% year on year. The growing demand and domestic consumer interest in services provide ample incentives to scale existing offerings, from burgeoning hotel and travel-focused infrastructure to dynamic digital screening experiences and AI development, to satisfy a wide range of international tourist tastes.

The incentives to capitalize are also ample. China's relaxed visa entry policies now include dozens of countries, underlining the country's success in catering to diverse consumer interests. This approach attracts both domestic and foreign spending to scale up industries tied to AI R&D.

"China's domestic market has presented a fertile ground for our business and we are quite confident about the future performance of the park," said Lyu Xiaozhuo, general manager of Shougang No. 1 Blast Furnace SoReal Sci-Fi Park, in a recent interview with Xinhua. "By integrating the original industrial infrastructure and breakthrough technologies, we've successfully repositioned the legacy industrial site as a premier tourist destination."

A cultural tourism sector backed by bleeding-edge AI offers significant international advantages. To China's advantage, scaled-up electric vehicle production is contributing to a dynamic, climate-friendly vision, and the integration of similar smart technologies into the cultural tourism sector provides evidence of versatility. China's diverse landscape of rural plains, prized tourist sites and internationally credited cultural and heritage sites collectively support customized consumer experiences in travel, cuisine, the digital economy and beyond. Look no further than how AI is helping tourists plan their trips. For instance, hundreds of thousands of social media posts have been focused on leveraging Chinese-built generative AI platforms, such as DeepSeek, to inform travel planning. 

The popularity is emblematic of increased technology use and its widespread integration across a spectrum of travel services. As China's hotel giants, such as Jin Jiang Radisson Hotels, expand overseas, and policy measures to better embed new quality productive forces in the tourism sector gain traction, there are ample incentives to bolster the country's cultural tourism sector even further. The demand for personalized recommendations on travel is only set to grow, underlining the strength of China's policymaking in ensuring that robust R&D becomes a defining feature of the country's modernization and broad-based appeal.

Ultimately, China's substantial contributions to bolstering its cultural tourism sector, new service sector offerings, dynamic tourist experiences and multimodal infrastructure are hallmarks of new quality productive forces coming into play. It is one thing to confine these merits to a nation's domestic progress, and another to ensure that those benefits are felt by scores of tourists spanning many parts of the world. China has achieved the remarkable feat of building the world's largest domestic tourism market while simultaneously becoming both the largest source of international tourists and a top global destination.

Hannan Hussain is co-founder and senior expert at Initiate Futures, an Islamabad-based policy think tank.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.