Tourism puts visitor experience first

On Kongtong Sacred Land, an island off the coast of Yantai, Shandong province, the visitor experience is designed to last well beyond a few hours of sightseeing. From the moment visitors board a boat at Zhifu Bay, they enter a journey built around the legends of the Eight Immortals, with performances and interactive experiences along the way.

The island's program includes multiple interactive performances, with a combined running time of over 300 minutes, as well as themed accommodation, dining and nighttime shows.

For Yuan Songbo, chairman of Yantai Culture and Tourism Industry Development Group, the project is part of a wider plan to connect the island with Yantai's mountains, bay, historical streets and urban center, encouraging visitors to stay in the city for two or three days or longer.

"We want to move Yantai tourism from transit visits to overnight stays," Yuan said at a tourism industry event in the city early this month, adding that the aim was to give visitors more opportunities to experience its coastal scenery.

Yet developing new attractions is only part of the challenge facing China's tourism industry, where destinations are struggling to encourage visitors to stay longer and explore more of what they have to offer, experts said at the 2026 Themed Event for High-Quality Development of the Tourism Industry, organized by the China Tourism Association.

More than 200 tourism experts, business representatives and local officials discussed how the sector should respond to changing demand over the next five years.

They concurred that the next stage of development will depend not only on what destinations build, but also on how they use existing resources, serve visitors and understand what people want from travel.

One significant change has been the emerging model of a "semi-scenic area", which is already reshaping the idea of a tourist destination, said Dai Xuefeng, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.