This year's Labor Day holiday saw Shandong emerge as a top tourist destination in China, largely driven by its high-quality cultural and tourism development. Building on its rich cultural and tourism resources, Shandong has launched the "Four Corridors and One Line" cultural experience corridors initiative. This ambitious project encompasses areas along the Yellow River, the Grand Canal, the Great Wall of Qi, the Yellow and Bohai Seas, and the Jiaoji Railway line. It aims to connect the province's cultural and tourism assets, foster new cultural display and experience centers, and effectively promote coordinated regional development and rural revitalization.
A Fresh Showcase for Culture
The festive lights along the ancient canal in Jining's Rencheng district shone brightly during the Labor Day holiday. Tourists enjoyed night cruises on the "Canal Memories" project, gliding along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, passing historical and cultural landmarks like the Yutang Sauce Garden and Taibai Tower, and taking in the light shows and performances along the banks.
The commercial streets along the canal were even more bustling, featuring not only intangible cultural heritage experiences like dough figurines and paper-cutting, but also a variety of local delicacies. "We integrate traditional cultural elements into our project design, allowing tourists to experience the canal culture while having fun," said Ding Xin, director of the "Canal Memories" project office. During the holiday, the "Canal Memories" historical and cultural district became a popular new "hot spot."
During the Labor Day holiday, Qufu, the hometown of Confucius in Jining, launched the "Yellow River Grand Fair" spring travel season. Culturally rich fairs "bloomed" throughout Qufu's urban and rural areas, offering tourists the chance to experience culture and purchase cultural and creative products.
A bustling market scene in Qufu, Jining, Shandong, the hometown of Confucius. (Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Xinyi)
At the "Yellow River Grand Fair" in Wucun Town, Qufu, local gourd carving artisan Zhang Xifeng used shallow carving and openwork techniques to create exquisite patterns on the surface of gourds, attracting many tourists to stop and watch. "There are cultural activities everywhere, it's very lively. It's worth the trip to experience traditional culture in the hometown of Confucius," said Wang Tengfei, a tourist from Jinan.
"Gourd sounds like 'Fulu' (fortune and prosperity) in Chinese. Carving the landscape or sages of Confucius' hometown on it is auspicious and unique, and many tourists like it," said Zhang Xifeng. This year, with more "cultural grand fairs," artisans have a stage. Since the opening of the market, he has sold 5,000 gourds.
In Shandong, cultural tourism projects with a "cultural flavor" are everywhere, with rich and colorful cultural activities as the carrier and the inheritance and innovation as the core. Cultural display, cultural experience, and cultural consumption are more vividly integrated into tourism. The "Four Corridors and One Line" is becoming a new window for displaying excellent traditional culture.
New Opportunities for Coordinated Development
The "Four Corridors and One Line" cultural experience corridors crisscross, running from east to west, covering more than 70 million people in 16 cities of Shandong, accounting for more than 70% of the province's total population. By effectively coordinating cultural tourism and other resources, it is becoming an important tool for regional coordinated development in Shandong Province.
Come to the Jiaodong Peninsula to see the sea, go to Zibo to eat barbecue, and go to Mount Tai to watch the sunrise... The "Four Corridors and One Line" cultural experience corridors drive various parts of Shandong to attract and retain tourists.
Tourists enjoy barbecue at a barbecue city in Zibo City on April 29. (Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhu Wei)
Data shows that in the first four days of this year's Labor Day holiday, the 200 key monitored tourist attractions in Shandong Province received a maximum of 5.155 million tourists per day, generating 101.572 million yuan in ticket revenue; the occupancy rates of hotels and homestays in various places increased significantly, and the length of stay was greatly extended.
From the "solo efforts" of individual cities and scenic spots to the regional coordination on the five cultural axes of the "Four Corridors and One Line," the scope of policy radiation continues to expand, providing new development opportunities for cultural and tourism resources within the scope of the "Four Corridors and One Line" axis.
In order to better integrate cultural and tourism resources, Shandong launched the "Hospitable Shandong, Cloud Tour of Qilu" smart cultural tourism platform, integrating the cultural and tourism resources of 16 cities in the province, and actively promoting the formation of a "provincial and municipal linkage integration" situation.
At present, more than 1,700 scenic spots have entered the smart cultural tourism platform, and 4A-level scenic spots in the province and major scenic spots along the Yellow River Basin in the province have basically entered, 34,000 hotels can be booked online, and major cultural and tourism enterprises and cultural and expo venues can be fully displayed. The number of platform users has reached more than 3.2 million.
New Engine for Rural Revitalization
"The Great Wall of Qi is winding, a long dragon lying in the clouds." In Chayekou Town, Laiwu District, Jinan City, a ballad has been circulating for hundreds of years.
Chayekou Town was an important ancient business road during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. The existing Huangshiguan, Fengmendao Pass and other important passes of the Great Wall of Qi are located here. The south side of this section of the Great Wall of Qi, which runs east-west along the mountain, is successively distributed with five ancient mountain villages, including Woyunpu.
In recent years, Laiwu District has developed tourism industry projects around the villages along the Great Wall of Qi. A 9.7-kilometer mountain road has been built from the foot of the mountain to the top, connecting five villages including Woyunpu, allowing the once-closed mountain villages to slowly regain their vitality.
"The natural scenery along the Great Wall of Qi is beautiful. Woyunpu Village is surrounded by mountains and rivers, rich in products, and has a profound cultural heritage. It has unique advantages," said Liu Xinkui, secretary of the Party Branch of Woyunpu Village. In the past, no one came to buy the red toon trees. Now each pound can be sold for 4 yuan; the wild leek flowers that could not be sold in the past can be sold for at least 50,000 yuan a year after processing; in the past, people could not be retained. Now that homestays have been built, tourists from other places often come to stay for several days...
Tourists take a boat trip to Nanyang Ancient Town. (Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Xinyi)
"Going out depends on boats, surrounded by water on all sides. The winding path leads to a secluded place, thinking it is Jiangnan." Nanyang Ancient Town, located in Weishan County, Jining City, is one of the best-preserved ancient towns on the Grand Canal, and still retains more than 30 historical sites such as the Royal Kitchen and the Imperial Grain Hall.
Liu Hu, the mayor of Nanyang Town, said that the local area adheres to the priority of ecology, focuses on tourism-driven and industry-driven development, creates cultural tourism projects such as fisherman weddings and dragon boat canal tours, and uses the Internet to sell specialties such as Gorgon fruit, wild water chestnuts, and salted duck eggs, effectively broadening the channels for villagers to increase income and become rich.
Shandong's "Four Corridors and One Line" five cultural axes connect the province's key scenic spots, heritage sites, ancient cities, ancient towns and ancient villages and other nodes. Among them, 130 key construction villages along the line will connect points into lines and lead the area with lines, effectively helping the revitalization of the countryside in Qilu.
"Against the backdrop of the increasingly significant comprehensive driving role of the cultural industry in rural economic and social development, the construction of cultural experience corridors will promote the two-way win-win situation of culture and industry, and open up a new industrial track for rural revitalization," said Wang Zhongwu, a professor at Shandong University. (Reporters Zhang Xinyi and Sun Xiaohui)
