China's smart tourism applications offer unique experiences to foreign travelers

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. She helps tourists from Asian countries travel to African countries, including Rwanda, Egypt and Tanzania. At the same time, her website has a "China package," catering to travelers from Africa who want to go to China.

At the 2024 China Culture & Tourism Industries Exposition held earlier this month in North China's Tianjin municipality, many foreign visitors were overwhelmed by the novel technologies adopted in 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 people 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 to experience the magnificent landscapes of China's mountains and rivers.

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

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

"Traveling in China can be so easy for foreigners! The digitalization and intelligence 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 (about $140 billion), accounting for more than 30 percent of the entire cultural tourism industry.