China to further integrate culture, tourism

BEIJING -- China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism has unveiled a series of measures to further integrate tourism with culture, including sectors such as traditional opera and traditional crafts.

Minister of Culture and Tourism Hu Heping made the announcement at a Thursday meeting attended by officials of the country's culture and tourism authorities, calling for efforts to facilitate the integration more broadly and deeply, and at a higher quality, to generate new growth drivers and strength in both the culture and tourism industries.

The ministry plans to support traditional opera troupes that are on the verge of extinction, revitalize traditional Chinese crafts, improve the protection and use of cultural artifacts, strengthen the preservation of intangible cultural heritage, and promote the technological upgrading of libraries nationwide, among other tasks for 2023, according to the meeting.

The ministry also laid out several recovery measures for tourism, including the development of national cultural parks at major tourist sites such as the Yellow River and the Great Wall, and the promotion of new travel forms such as rural tours and camping trips.