Technology injects fresh impetus in cultural tourism

Over the May Day holiday, a wave of immersive, interactive exhibitions not only stopped visitors in their tracks, but also gave new impetus to the cultural tourism boom.

At the National Museum of China in Beijing, Magnificence and Grandeur: Immersive Experience of Grotto Art was well received.

The exhibition uses giant installations, artificial intelligence algorithms, digital interactive applications and other technologies to re-create cultural treasures from the Mogao Caves, the Maiji Mountain Grottoes, the Yungang Grottoes and the Longmen Grottoes.

The murals, sculptures, carvings and inscriptions, which convey the aesthetic pursuits, cultural spirit and values intrinsic to ancient Chinese grotto art, have been re-created in digital form, lending cultural heritage a renewed vitality, according to one museum volunteer.

For example, inscriptions from the Longmen Grottoes have been brought back to life by AI algorithms and augmented reality infrared triggering technology. When visitors touch a character, they are able to see it in the form of an oracle bone, inscription, official, cursive and running script and a variety of other formats.

A visitor surnamed Xu from Guangdong province was particularly happy with their trip to Beijing. "There are many museums in Beijing, and some exhibitions are particularly creative and technical, incorporating education and entertainment, which is inspiring to the kids."

According to data from online travel agency Ctrip, ticket sales for major museums increased by more than 10 percent year-on-year during the May Day holiday, while the number of tickets sold for museums in Beijing, Shenyang, Chengdu, Xi'an, and Kaifeng was also relatively high.

In recent years, digital technology like AI has injected new vitality into exhibitions around the world, making faded artifacts glow once more.

At the Phoenix Center in Beijing, a Virtual Reality immersive experience exhibition based on Egypt's pyramids has seen up to 1,000 visitors a day.

The exhibition uses holographic scanning technology, with a virtual engine creating high-precision reconstructions of the inner pyramid and its surrounding environment.

Fei Jun, a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, says it is now quite common for museums, archaeological parks and other cultural and tourism sites to use digital technology to enhance their exhibitions, and that "this kind of integration can establish closer links between culture and the public".

On the first floor of Hopson One, a shopping mall in Beijing's Chaoyang district, an immersive VR exhibition called Wow! Sanxingdui attracted many young college students and families during the May Day holiday.

Wearing VR equipment, one Beijing resident and her family "traveled" together to the ancient Shu Kingdom, to stroll through ancient villages, visiting the Sanxingdui ruins, while learning about their mysterious sacrificial rituals.

"We wanted to take advantage of the May Day holiday to look at Sanxingdui artifacts," the woman surnamed Li says. "The cartoon character tour guide, which was designed to look like a Sanxingdui bronze mask, was particularly cute. He spoke in Sichuan dialect and told us about life and rituals during the ancient Shu period."

Xinhua