Cultural tourism industry to take center stage in Xi'an by 2022

Xi'an, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi province, has recently enacted plans to build itself into a national pilot city for cultural and tourism consumption.

The plans propose that by 2022, the city's cultural tourism industry will become a pillar industry with core competitiveness in Xi'an, and the tourism income will maintain double-digit growth. The construction of an international cultural tourism center and world-class tourist destination that preserves Chinese culture is expected to take place.

During this period, Xi'an will issue cultural coupons for citizens to stimulate market consumption in performing arts, movies, and entertainment. The city will continue to organize activities, such as the Silk Road International Film Festival, the Xi'an International Marathon, and the Xi'an International Music Festival, to enrich cultural tourism consumption.

Financial and social capital will be encouraged to participate in the development of cultural and creative industries, and small, medium, and micro cultural and creative enterprises will receive more support.

In addition, Xi'an will accelerate the construction of a number of national, provincial, and municipal cultural industry demonstration park bases, and by 2022, there should be 150 cultural industry park bases above the municipal level in the city.

Some scenic spots in the city will be encouraged to be upgraded to national 4A-level scenic spots, such as Xingqing Palace, and Lintong district and the Chanba Ecological District will strive to become national-level tourist resorts as well.

To improve the service quality of the tourism accommodation industry, Xi'an will encourage the development of high-end themed hotels with Xi'an characteristics and create leisure resort-style and cultural experience-style boutique homestays.

In addition, scenic spots are encouraged to introduce social capital to attract literary and artistic performance groups and talent, and develop small theater performance products. By 2022, the number of boutique tourism performances in the city should exceed 30.

Meanwhile, Xi'an will promote the integrated development of cultural tourism with sports, the environment, conventions and exhibitions, and the agriculture industry to enrich tourism products.

Furthermore, to develop the nighttime economy, the city will encourage key business districts, museums, libraries, and art galleries to extend their operating hours and help some business districts develop into national night cultural and tourist consumption gathering areas.