Country's smart tourism apps offer unique experiences

TIANJIN — Wearing an elegant white dress, Umuhoza, a Rwandan businesswoman, took a photo in front of a smart photo device, which soon generated a photo depicting her as a valiant and chivalrous female with traditional Chinese features.

"When people travel to China, they really want to take memories back home. The device can take a picture of you and then transform you into a Chinese kind of person. I really love it," Umuhoza said.

Umuhoza runs a travel website and helps tourists from Asia travel to African countries, including Rwanda, Egypt and Tanzania. At the same time, her website has packages catering to travelers from Africa who want to visit China.

At the 2024 China Culture and Tourism Industries Exposition held in North China's Tianjin Municipality in September, many foreign visitors were overwhelmed by the novel technologies adopted by China's tourism sector.

"That's amazing. I am very interested in autonomous driving cars and many smart tourism scenes. Perhaps new trade cooperation can be carried out in the future," Umuhoza said.

Telling more about China

Putting on a virtual reality headset, Elena Jitari-Parry, a full-time travel blogger from Moldova, was instantly drawn to various places as she experienced the magnificent landscapes of China's mountains and rivers.

"So beautiful. It felt so authentic," Jitari-Parry said.

At a booth provided by Midu, a company focusing on artificial intelligence and large language models, she also quickly learned about securing travel tips for exploring Tianjin via an intelligent tourism companion system that simply requires a person to ask questions.

"Traveling in China can be so easy for foreigners! The digitalization and intelligent services of Chinese tourist attractions have become a new trend, enabling foreigners like me to enjoy a more comfortable and convenient travel experience in China," Jitari-Parry said.

With the desire to further explore China, Jitari-Parry chose to be a full-time travel blogger, documenting her travels and experiences in China. "Foreigners are very interested in China's technological development. I always advise my audience to come to China and see something different."

The deep integration of technology and the cultural tourism sector not only creates a variety of experiential consumption scenarios, but also meets people's new needs for personalized travel, immersive experiences and creative consumption.

Data showed that by the end of 2023, the scale of China's digital cultural tourism market had exceeded 1 trillion yuan ($142.6 billion), accounting for more than 30 percent of the entire cultural tourism industry.

Smart, convenient services

In the exhibition area of Meituan, one of China's leading online service platforms, high-end technologies such as drones and autonomous delivery vehicles became the focus of foreign bloggers' lenses.

Ruben Diaz Jr. from the United States was amazed by it. "Some of these things are brand new to me. Tourists can specify drones to deliver the items they need directly to the scenic areas, which is definitely more convenient," he said.

A staff member at the Meituan booth said that the company's drones are currently operating on more than 30 routes in cities such as Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and have completed over 300,000 orders in total.

Thanks to the rapid development of smart tourism in China, tourists have become accustomed to using online payments, ticket purchases and guided tours during their travels.

Data from iResearch, an industry research and consulting institute, showed that in 2023, the total number of monthly uses and total usage time of online travel apps had grown by more than 30 percent year-on-year on average.

Some Chinese online travel service companies also use digital technologies to meet the growing travel needs of foreign visitors to China.

In May, Tongcheng Travel launched an international travel reservation platform named Hope-Goo, which supports payments in 16 global currencies via various operating languages.

Richard Santana, a product designer and blogger from the United States, said that with these online services, foreigners will be more willing to go to China, while their travels in China will also be more convenient.

Ma Yiliang, chief statistician of the China Tourism Academy, said that "digitalization plus cultural tourism" has become a developing trend.

As "China Travel" has surged to be a hot global social media topic, demand for inbound tourism to China has increased significantly.

"With smarter and more convenient experiences in China, foreign tourists can find a more open, more confident and safer China during their travels," said Ma.

Xinhua