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since the launch of black myth: wukong, the number of online users and sales have repeatedly broken records. the cultural attributes of the journey to the west ip have also benefited tourist destinations: data from multiple platforms show that tourism to shanxi, chongqing and other places where the game was mainly filmed has increased significantly, and checking in at the ancient buildings and temples that appear in the game scenes has become a travel trend for many tourists.

with its vast territory and long history, my country has numerous cultural relics, and "cultural relics tourism" has become a unique tourism theme and trend. to better play the tourism value of cultural relics and make cultural heritage truly "benefit future generations", it not only requires scenic spots to actively develop and always adhere to cultural relics protection, but also puts forward higher challenges and requirements for the methods of protection.

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01

seeking the “true scriptures” of cultural relics resources

according to the definition of type, cultural relics can be divided into movable cultural relics and immovable cultural relics. the former refers to collectible cultural relics such as bronzes, ceramics, silk fabrics, calligraphy and paintings, which are held and protected by various cultural and museum venues and folk enthusiasts; the latter refers to historical sites such as ancient tombs, ancient buildings, stone carvings and murals. the immovable cultural relics included in the protection objects are collectively referred to as the well-known "cultural relics protection units". at present, my country has 108 million movable cultural relics and more than 760,000 immovable cultural relics of various types.

different types of cultural relics also lead to different forms of tourism. for cultural relics in museums, which belong to the already mature industry of museums and memorial halls, the cultural relics themselves are protected, displayed and introduced in a planned way, and tourists can also conveniently enhance their sightseeing experience with the help of vr, ar and other means.

this summer, cultural and museum venues are once again popular among the public. tourists have long been accustomed to bringing their families to spend an afternoon in glass display cases and under fill lights to "see all" hundreds of thousands of cultural relics from five thousand years ago. all they have to solve is the problem of reservations, which are hard to get.

tourist attractions and projects developed based on immovable cultural relics either use cultural relics as the main or even the only tourist attraction and the main body of the scenic area (such as the terracotta warriors and horses of the qin shihuang mausoleum, the old summer palace, the fujian tulou, etc.), or package and sell cultural relics to tourists together with other tourist resources such as landscapes, commercial districts, etc. within the scenic area (such as huangshan - cliff carvings, west lake - su causeway and baidi causeway, etc.).

as emphasized in the state council's "several opinions on strengthening reform of cultural relics protection and utilization" in 2018 - support social forces to reasonably utilize cultural relics resources in accordance with laws and regulations, provide diversified and multi-level cultural products and services, and cultural relics-themed tourism products and cultural tourism projects are constantly being updated.

in datong, shanxi, the "revisiting the lianglin road ancient building tour" was selected into the mafengwo 2023 domestic "new ways to play" top100 list. this route follows the footsteps of the two architectural masters liang sicheng and lin huiyin, and plans and connects the ancient architectural treasures of northern shanxi, such as foguang temple, nanchan temple, huayan temple, shanhua temple, hanging temple, yingxian wooden pagoda, and yungang grottoes. the relevant person in charge of mafengwo said that the once niche ancient building theme tours have begun to enter the public eye in recent years, and museums, grotto temples, ruins and other attractions have become the "new national trend" of tourism that young people are competing to pursue. this change in tourism consumption preferences will also have a far-reaching impact on the reshaping of the tourism industry chain.

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mr. deng, who just visited shanxi during the summer vacation, told pincheng travel that even without the popularity of "follow wukong to travel in shanxi", the local ancient building scenic spots are already "packed with people": it takes two or three hours to queue up at the foot of the mountain to enter the hanging temple, and driving to the yungang grottoes also involves traffic jams for nearly an hour.

in quzhou, zhejiang, the nanzong ancestral temple of the kong family, one of the only two confucius ancestral temples in the country besides qufu, shandong, is located in the city. chen qiong, deputy manager of the planning and operation department of quzhou cultural tourism investment and development co., ltd., introduced that the confucius temple is a must-visit attraction for tourists. one kilometer west of the confucius temple, the shuitingmen city wall guards the ancient city of quzhou, and the leisurely qujiang river has also guarded it for 1,800 years. over thousands of years of history, merchants and travelers traveling on the river tied their boats to the shore, passed through the city tower built in the late eastern han dynasty, and walked into the prosperous streets in the center of the ancient city of quzhou. today, tourists visiting the ancient city scenic area can climb the viewing platform on the second floor of the city tower to see the street and river views, and the same camera position for shooting the film is also popular on social media platforms.

however, the other side of the cultural tourism boom is the long and arduous status of cultural protection. during his visit, mr. deng found that many grottoes and stone carvings were severely weathered and eroded, and the maintenance cycle was very long; the shuitingmen city wall partially collapsed due to continuous heavy rains in june this year. the scenic spot is working with the cultural protection and technology department of the municipal museum to speed up repairs, striving to allow tourists and citizens to meet this national cultural protection unit again before the spring festival.

02

protection also has "81 difficulties"

the emergence of "i repair cultural relics in the forbidden city" has allowed many people to get in touch with the field of cultural relic restoration for the first time, and understand how the profession of cultural relic restorer connects the past and the present, and "injects soul" into damaged and aging cultural relics. given the size and specifications of the forbidden city, plus a group of the country's top experts, restoration can be done without considering tools and costs. but despite this, it is not difficult for the audience to find that this work is painstaking and laborious, and even with the support of professionalism and passion, it is still not easy.

moreover, cultural relics protection is one of the important contents of the museum's main work; and for market-oriented scenic spots, the number of tourists and consumption figures are often more important indicators, which makes the implementation of cultural relics protection work more difficult.

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the documentary "datong" starring the former mayor geng yanbo won the 52nd golden horse award. in the film, this iron-fisted official, who was nicknamed "geng zhidao" and "geng demolition", led the development of famous scenic spots such as wang family courtyard, yungang grottoes, and huayan temple. he also encountered huge doubts when facing the reconstruction and restoration of cultural relics: first, large-scale demolition and construction brought huge debts to the city; second, the "demolition of real buildings and construction of fake ones" damaged their original appearance.

in 2019, datong was named in a report by the ministry of housing and urban-rural development and the state administration of cultural heritage for "poor protection" and "serious damage to historical and cultural relics, and serious impact on historical and cultural values". however, it cannot be denied that urban renewal has indeed brought better infrastructure and more attractive tourism products to the ancient city and ancient buildings, which naturally attracts a large number of tourists.

geng yanbo resigned as mayor of datong in 2013. to this day, the dilemma he experienced continues to occur, which are also two current situations and challenges that cannot be ignored in the operation of cultural heritage scenic spots.

the first is how to minimize the damage to cultural relics during tourism development and reach a balance between their conservation value and economic value.

in the mogao grottoes, the comings and goings and breathing of tourists cause drastic changes in the ambient temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide content in the cave space, which directly lead to accelerated oxidation, cracking and even falling of the murals; the fanjing mountain scenic area in guizhou province arbitrarily painted the exterior wall of the golden roof building from gray to red in an attempt to make it more "marketable" in marketing; the cultural relic courtyard in tianshui ancient city in gansu province, which cost nearly 900 million yuan to renovate, has become an "unrecognizable" japanese restaurant; tourists who carve and paint on the great wall make the news every year... whether intentionally or unintentionally, tourists and operators who lack professional knowledge of cultural relic protection are objectively accelerating the destruction and aging of cultural relics.

in addition to implementing policy supervision and limiting passenger flow, making use of technology will also be an important solution to the above problems. the badaling great wall uses drones to lift repair materials and four-legged intelligent robots to inspect the walls; the "digital dunhuang" project collects and scans cultural relics online, and the offline dunhuang grottoes monitoring center relies on more than 600 different types of sensors to build a preventive protection monitoring and early warning system, which updates and interactively analyzes the temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide concentration, passenger flow and other data of each open cave, as well as rainfall, floods, and sandstorms within a radius of hundreds of kilometers, in real time on a large screen.

however, such an expensive system directly points to the second challenge of cultural heritage protection practice in scenic spots: it requires money, a lot of money, and many scenic spots cannot afford it.

the person in charge of a mountain scenic spot told pincheng tourism that the scenic spot "has the will but not the ability" to develop tourism for cultural relics resources, resulting in the current lack of various supporting hardware and software facilities, which are not attractive enough to tourists. the tight financial situation also affects the repair of cultural relics. a mountain where a southern song dynasty tomb is located in the scenic spot is at risk of landslides due to rainfall, and drainage facilities are planned to be built as a precaution, but the government management department has no subsidy budget for this, so the plan can only be abandoned in the end. chen qiong also said that a lot of manpower and material resources have been invested in the rescue work of the shuitingmen city wall, and the emergency rescue and enclosure investment alone has cost millions, and all of these need to be borne by the management and operation company of the scenic spot (the city wall repair funds are guaranteed by the municipal finance department).

in april 2024, the ministry of finance issued a budget of 6.383 billion yuan for the protection of national cultural relics in 2024. however, considering the overall scale of the above-mentioned more than 760,000 immovable cultural relics and hundreds of millions of movable cultural relics, the resources allocated to the scenic spots are inevitably insufficient. according to the paper, a few years ago, a leader of the shanxi provincial cultural relics bureau revealed that the financial investment in cultural protection in many counties was "zero". the state administration of cultural heritage also quoted a grassroots cultural relic worker in a tweet, saying that "the lack of financial investment, the unwillingness of property owners to invest, and the inability of society to invest are common phenomena facing low-level cultural relic protection at present."

how can we establish a mutually beneficial chain among cultural relics, tourists and scenic spots?

actively introducing social resources is a feasible solution that has been verified by many parties. in 2017, shanxi issued an implementation plan to mobilize and encourage social forces to participate in the protection and utilization of cultural relics through various forms such as donations, fundraising, investment, and adoption, forming a new mechanism of "government guidance, social participation, and sharing of results." depending on the conditions of the cultural relics, social capital will be used for daily maintenance, environmental improvement and other repair work, and will also contribute value in exhibition display, revitalization and other development work. shanxi kaijia energy group obtained the operating rights of jiexiu zhangbi ancient castle in the form of "adoption" cooperation, and built it into a 4a-level scenic spot that receives more than 350,000 tourists annually.

in beijing, more than ten ancient buildings such as the imperial college, bell and drum tower, white pagoda temple, and wanshou temple have become performance stages, with music flowing in temples, pavilions, and high platforms. the "ancient building music season" jointly launched by the beijing municipal cultural relics bureau and the dongcheng district government is funded and operated by enterprises. it is mainly based on music performances, supplemented by public art education, ancient building dialogues, city visits and other activities, bringing immersive cross-border experiences to the public. more extensive social participation has made cultural relics "come alive" and also increased their tourism popularity.

in 2012, the state council's "opinions on further improving the protection of cultural relics in tourism and other development and construction activities" pointed out: strictly implement cultural relic protection laws and regulations; strictly implement the approval of tourism and other development and construction activities involving cultural relics; reasonably determine the tourist carrying capacity of cultural relics scenic spots; increase investment in cultural relic protection; strengthen guidance and supervision of cultural relic tourism; effectively implement cultural relic protection responsibilities; conscientiously perform cultural relic protection duties; and correct illegal and irregular behaviors in accordance with the law.

more than a decade later, the policy still has a clear guiding significance, and its real implementation requires the continuous improvement of public awareness and the joint participation of all sectors. cultural relics are exquisite and magnificent, but also ancient and fragile. only by doing in-depth and good protection can their value not only remain in the background of the game.