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