Culture, tourism highlights of SW China’s Guizhou in 2021

Photo taken on Oct. 3, 2021 shows a tourist boat at a scenic area in Huawu village, Xinren Miao township, Qianxi city, southwest China’s Guizhou Province. (Photo courtesy of Guizhou provincial department of culture and tourism)

Southwest China’s Guizhou Province made a good start in promoting high-quality development of both its culture and tourism industries in 2021, the year that marks the start of the country’s 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025).

Here are some key highlights of Guizhou’s culture and tourism industries in 2021.

Releasing top-level design documents to build up strengths in the culture and tourism industries

The Guizhou Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the provincial people’s government issued guidelines on promoting the high-quality development of the tourism sector and building it into a major province of tourism in China. The province also approved guidelines on upgrading its tourism sector, and a development plan for its culture and tourism industries during the 14th Five-Year Plan period.

Realizing the comprehensive transformation of the tourism sector

In 2021, Guizhou realized the comprehensive transformation of its tourism sector. The province received 644 million tourists and received tourism revenue of more than 664.2 billion yuan (about $98.4 billion) last year, up 8.03 percent and 15.91 percent year on year, respectively. The added value of the province’s tourism sector and relevant industries exceeded 100 billion yuan. The per capita spending of tourists surpassed 1,000 yuan in Guizhou.

Furthermore, 15 counties and cities were listed among the top 100 counties and cities with comprehensive competitiveness and development potential in the tourism sector in 2021, ranked third nationwide. Last year, Guizhou was home to 22 tourism companies with a market value of more than 100 million yuan, respectively.

Guizhou issued consumption coupons worth 53 million yuan to boost cultural and tourism consumption, and rolled out targeted preferential policies to attract tourists.

Popularity of “red tourism,” which involves visits to sites associated with CPC revolutionary heritage

Guizhou issued and implemented the regulation on the Long March national cultural park. It made solid progress in the planning and construction of landmark projects of the province’s section of the Long March national cultural park.

Guizhou held high-quality exhibitions of cultural relics related to the CPC and unveiled 12 tourist routes to help people learn more about the history of the CPC. Three of these routes are among the top 100 national-level tourist routes of the same kind. These came as part of the efforts to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC. The province also carried out activities, including the 2021 Guizhou red tourism year, and retracing the route of the Long March.

Building new tourism brands through the integrated development of tourism and other sectors

Pursuing the integrated development of tourism and other sectors, Guizhou rolled out 56 new tourism products and new business forms.

Anshun city in the province was listed in the second batch of national pilot cities for cultural and tourism consumption. Guiding county and Liuzhi special zone were selected as national-level major counties for farm-based recreation. The Wanfenglin sports-themed ecological park in Xingyi city and the Youhua grassland in Longli county of Qiannan Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture were included in the list of national sports-based tourism demonstration zones. Four scenic areas were listed in the first batch of national nighttime culture and tourism consumption areas. Guizhou added eleven national 4A-level scenic spots and four provincial-level tourism resorts.

Fruitful archaeological achievements and further development of museums

Guizhou issued the implementation plans for further promoting archaeological development and carried out surveys on resources of cultural relics in an orderly manner.

Guizhou released its first batch of revolutionary cultural relics list, including 604 immovable cultural relics and 112 movable and rare cultural relics. The Zhaoguo Cave site in Gui’an New Area was listed among China’s top 10 archaeological discoveries of 2020. Two archaeological sites in the province were selected among China’s top 100 archeological findings of the past century.

Guizhou deepened reform of its museums. It issued a notice to support the development of non-state-owned museums. It also released an implementation plan to better display cultural relics in its cultural relic protection sites and museums.

Building distinctive culture and tourism brands through innovative promotion

Guizhou held the International Conference of Mountain Tourism and Outdoor Sports 2021 and the 16th Guizhou Tourism Industry Development Conference. It initiated an alliance to enhance cooperation in culture and tourism with southwest China’s Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality. It held the 2021 Annual Conference of International Mountain Tourism Alliance. It established a collaboration mechanism for promoting culture and tourism resources at the provincial, city, and county levels.

Guizhou also organized a dazzling array of activities to promote its rich culture and tourism resources both online and offline.

Boosting rural revitalization through tourism

Taking rural tourism as an important part of its tourism sector, Guizhou aimed to boost rural revitalization through the development of rural tourism.

Guizhou selected 134 provincial key villages and townships for rural tourism in 2021, bringing the total number to 323. The province added 11 national key villages and townships for rural tourism, which ranked first nationwide. Two homestay hotels in the province were included in the list of the first batch of China’s 31 top-class homestay hotels.

The province completed the construction of 100 multipurpose cultural service demonstration sites for poverty alleviation relocation projects. Two places were selected as the World Tourism Alliance’s best practices of rural revitalization through tourism, and six places as China’s best practices of poverty alleviation through rural tourism, ranking second and first nationwide, respectively.

Reviving intangible cultural heritage (ICH) through innovation

Eighteen items in Guizhou were listed in the fifth batch of national ICHs, bringing the province’s total number to 99. Song Shuixian, an ICH inheritor in the province, was named as one of China’s top 10 ICH inheritors of the Year 2020.

Guizhou also held multiple online and offline ICH-related activities to promote the integrated development of culture and tourism industries, as well as sales of ICH-related products. It also held the 2021 competition for ICHs.

Promoting tourism with high-quality literary and artistic works

Focusing on themes including the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC, consolidating the achievements in poverty alleviation, pushing forward rural revitalization, and inheriting fine culture, Guizhou created multiple high-quality literary and artistic works. For example, five works of fine art were permanently collected by the Museum of the CPC, and three plays were included in the national fine stage performances to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC.

An art exhibition opened in Guizhou to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC. In addition, Guizhou held the 2021 Colorful Guizhou Culture and Arts Festival, a yearly cultural event designed to showcase the culture of ethnic minority groups throughout the province.

Improving the quality of public cultural services while achieving new progress in smart tourism

Guizhou advanced the construction of its smart library system and internet-based public cultural services.

Liupanshui city in the province was among the demonstration zones for national public cultural service system.

Guizhou implemented various cultural projects, and carried out about 5,000 public cultural activities with over 30 million participants.

The province’s smart online tourism platform attracted a total of 260 million visits and 23 million users. Another two smart tourism systems in the province were incorporated as typical cases of smart tourism in 2021 by the China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Enhancing satisfaction in the tourism sector by improving market order

Guizhou improved the quality of tourism services on a regular basis. It cracked down on illegal practices in the tourism sector, ordered the closure of 50 tourism-related shopping places, and investigated nine travel agencies and four tour guides. It accepted and handled 716 tourism-related complaints, a decline of 31.29 percent year on year.

Founding the Guizhou Vocational College of Culture and Tourism

On Feb. 11, 2021, the people’s government of Guizhou approved the establishment of Guizhou Vocational College of Culture and Tourism, making it a new training base for professional tourism talents in the province.