"Tourism Green Paper" Released: During the 14th Five-Year Plan, China's cultural and tourism integration will achieve a leap in levels

On March 26, the Tourism Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released the “Tourism Green Paper: Analysis and Forecast of China’s Tourism Development from 2025 to 2026,” which provides insights and forecasts on China’s tourism development through one main report and 20 specialized reports.

The Green Paper points out that since 2025, the integration of culture and tourism, digital intelligence empowerment, sports economy, and inbound tourism have become important pivot points for unleashing tourism development potential. With the generational shift of tourist groups and changes in consumer psychology, tourism has long since moved beyond the simple sightseeing model of “whirlwind tours,” upgrading to a compound experience that integrates cultural cognition, emotional resonance, and value recognition. Looking ahead to the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, visitors’ demands for cultural participation, experiential depth, artistic expression, and digital interpretation will further increase. Immersive, emotional, and interactive experiences will become the core competitiveness in attracting tourists. The demand for “experiential value” will continue to lead the iterative updates in the tourism market, and the integration of culture and tourism will achieve a hierarchical leap.

“14th Five-Year Plan” Period

New Tourist Demands Driving Rapid Iteration on the Supply Side of Tourism

The “Tourism Green Paper” notes that the generational shift of tourist groups and changes in consumer psychology are reshaping the demand structure of the culture and tourism market. During the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, tourist demands will show trends that are more instantaneous, more segmented, and more focused on emotions and feelings. This demand is fragmented, immediate, and highly reliant on social media dissemination, thus requiring the supply side to possess rapid iteration capabilities. Tourists’ participation in cultural content has significantly increased, and they are raising higher requirements for experiential depth, artistic expression, and digital interpretation. Technologically empowered immersive experiences, emotionally characterized human experiences, and interactive cultural participation experiences will together form the key elements of tourism attractiveness.

Diversity of Emotions and Feelings

Granting More Development Opportunities for Tourism Destinations

The Key is to “Move People with Emotions”

The book also mentions that people become excited and stimulated to travel due to various different things, which provides many non-traditional and less-known tourist destinations and resources with opportunities. Focusing on emotional value and emotional appeals, the most critical aspect of tourism destination development is to be able to “move people with emotions.”

Deep Integration of Culture and Tourism

Promoting High-Quality Development of the Tourism Industry

In the future, it is recommended to focus on creating cultural experience scenarios that are “perceptible and participatory,” promoting the integrated development of destinations with culture and technology, and transforming scenic resources and unique cultural experience routes into carriers of emotional resonance. In terms of product integration, it is suggested to rely on high-quality cultural resources such as intangible cultural heritage to build immersive experience spaces, showcasing the charm of cultural tourism through a multidimensional interactive model that is “observable, edible, touchable, and participatory.” In terms of industry support and infrastructure integration, efforts should focus on upgrading the basic functions of the transportation, accommodation, and catering industry chain segments to core cultural tourism experience targets. For instance, deeply cultivating themed special trains on red culture, hotels themed on intangible cultural heritage, and cultural IP-linked dining spaces, while combining cultural scene products like “folk festivals” and “New Year experiences,” will continuously lead and drive new trends in tourism consumption, promoting high-quality development of the tourism industry through deep integration of culture and tourism.