Hunan scenic area boosts hot spot bona fides

A different experiment is unfolding in downtown Zhangjiajie. On July 10, Dayong ancient town reopened after an extensive renovation led by Zhangjiajie mango cultural tourism, a joint venture involving local operators and leading broadcast media.

The riverside complex blends historical architectural style streets with television-themed shops, youth-oriented cultural merchandise, craft workshops, street performances and evening boat rides. Within its first month, it drew more than 1 million visits and generated more than 10 million yuan ($1.49 million) in business turnover.

"We want travelers who spend their daylight hours among the peaks to return downtown at night for an entirely different cultural texture," said Zhou Yang, general manager of the operating company, adding that roughly 80 percent of weekend visitors arrive after dusk.

This strategy to capture extended stays is rippling across neighboring destinations in the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture.

In the town of Furong, perched dramatically above a cascading waterfall, foreign tourists browse tea workshops, stroll through historical alleyways and stop to dine alongside locals who still live inside the centuries-old settlement.

The town received 6.53 million visits in 2025, including 338,000 from overseas, up 61 percent year-on-year, according to local official figures.

Zhong Fei, chairman of Hunan Huaxia Investment Group — which operates the destination through a JV with the local government — said international tourists accounted for roughly 40 percent of independent arrivals and about half of independent visitor spending.

Evening performances, guesthouses and hands-on workshops have helped extend average stays from half a day to one or two nights in the town, Zhong said.

Local restaurants have also adjusted. Local smoked pork appears on pizzas and in burgers, while coffee is sweetened with local ginger candy, offering foreign visitors familiar formats with local flavors.

"The visitors are not just coming for the scenery. They are interested in the culture and in seeing how local people live," Zhong said.

Crucially, the town has preserved its ancient social fabric, retaining native residents within the scenic core. The settlement hosts roughly 200 guesthouses and nearly 1,500 small nighttime enterprises, with locals making up 80 percent of the resort's workforce.

Further south, Fenghuang ancient town received 111,313 inbound tourist visits in the first half, up 5.12 percent year-on-year, while inbound tourism spending increased 15.18 percent to $44.3 million, said Xiang Yang, deputy head of the Fenghuang county government.

To connect these scattered gems, Hunan provincial authorities are accelerating development of the "Greater Zhangjiajie" international tourism zone, spanning 38 county-level areas across five cities and prefectures, including Zhangjiajie, Xiangxi and Huaihua.

The province has introduced eight inbound tourism routes and aims to attract 2 million inbound tourists annually by 2027, targeting $1.12 billion in inbound tourism spending.

Challenges persist. Huang said overseas travel agencies still tend to sell the mountain parks as standalone destinations, while fragmented administration, limited transport connections and uneven international services continued to restrict travel beyond Zhangjiajie's best-known attractions.

The provincial plan seeks to address those gaps by improving transport connections, developing cross-regional itineraries, upgrading multilingual services and encouraging tourism companies to work across administrative boundaries.

Huang emphasized that while eliminating low-cost package competition and administrative barriers takes time, the evolving mix of inbound visitors provides strong tailwinds for higher-value, tailor-made products.

The vibrant overseas reception across regional theaters, craft workshops and historic towns demonstrates that global travelers are eager to explore beyond the mountains.

"By improving regional connections and enabling travel agencies, hotels and cultural-tourism businesses to work together across the region, visitor flows can be converted into tangible and sustainable economic growth," Huang said.

He Chun in Changsha contributed to this story.

lijing2009@chinadaily.com.cn