Yesterday, the National Artificial Intelligence Application Pilot Base (Cultural Tourism) Park was officially opened. This "national-level" base, located in Hangzhou, focuses on fields such as cultural精品 creation, cultural going global, cultural tourism integration, and cultural heritage protection, with the goal of using artificial intelligence to accelerate the innovative transformation of cultural tourism scenarios.
In recent years, the collision between artificial intelligence and cultural tourism has frequently sparked "sparks." At the Chinese Painting Masters Series Collection Hall, the "Masters Series" AIGC short videos transform ancient paintings from static displays into "dynamic narratives"; at the digital cultural tourism industry base M511 Light and Shadow Hub, the "Dongpo Intelligent Agent" engages in cross-temporal dialogues with visitors, discussing life philosophies; with the help of the "Zhejiang Travel" platform, tourists can generate personalized cultural tourism routes with one click, smoothly completing customs clearance, payment, check-in, and multiple other steps... Now that artificial intelligence is empowering all industries, how much imaginative space can "AI + cultural tourism" derive, and what new experiences and new scenarios can it unlock? National Artificial Intelligence Application Pilot Base (Cultural Tourism) Park Image source: "Gongshu Release" WeChat public account.
Data shows that in 2025, China's smart tourism market size will exceed 14.5 trillion yuan. Among this, the application of artificial intelligence technology across the entire tourism chain continues to deepen, helping the cultural tourism industry accelerate its upgrade toward personalization and immersion.
Making the "distant" feel close at hand. Constrained by time and space, people cannot reach all historical and cultural sites, and even when physically present, they may not fully grasp the whole picture. AI is breaking through this barrier. For example, at the Deqing Bocai AI Virtual Film and Television Base, actors do not need to travel across oceans to be placed in film and television scenes from around the world. Watching the shifting light and shadow of the giant LED curved screen, many visitors exclaim, "It feels like completing a journey through time and space." Another example: at the recently concluded Fifth Global Digital Trade Expo, the Zhejiang Conservatory of Music used AI technology to replicate Warring States bronze chime bells, turning them into an experiential handheld interactive instrument. Visitors can strike with a controller and hear the ritual music from more than two thousand years ago.
Making the "aloof" feel approachable. With the help of artificial intelligence technology, cultural tourism can iterate from the past's cursory sightseeing into customized services and deep interaction, allowing even laypeople to "understand the finer points." For example, at the Liangzhu Museum, as long as visitors stand in front of a jade cong, the AI glasses they wear automatically begin explaining. Another example: at the Hangzhou West Lake Museum, the "Mr. Dongpo" multifunctional digital human all-in-one machine can not only provide real-time Q&A, AI-guided tours, and interactive photo-taking, but also generate customized themed routes for the museum area.
Allowing classics to regain new life. Through AI, digital collection and restoration technologies, and more, the "governing and conception vessels" for the inheritance, dissemination, and promotion of artistic classics and cultural heritage can be opened, thus radiating new vitality. For example, through its self-developed generative AI large model, Youku completed high-definition restoration of multiple nationally iconic classic film and television dramas such as CCTV's versions of "Dream of the Red Chamber," "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," "Water Margin," and "Journey to the West," and launched them on the platform. Another example: relying on AI deep learning technology, the intricate weaving process of the Southern Song kesi masterpiece "Lotus Pond with Baby Ducks" was decomposed into 666 million digital organizational points, forming a standardized, reusable digital craft archive that can be called upon and recreated at any time. The visual presentation portions involving historical scenes in the large-scale historical and humanistic documentary "Wu Yue Kingdom" were all filmed at the Deqing Bocai AI Virtual Film and Television Base. Image source: "Deqing Release" WeChat public account.
Currently, artificial intelligence is becoming a catalyst for cultural tourism integration. More and more scenic areas, cultural venues, and enterprises are introducing AI technology, bringing traditional culture to life and making tourism experiences new. But it must be admitted that AI empowering cultural tourism still faces some barriers that urgently need to be broken through.
For example, "data islands" have not yet been completely broken down. China's cultural resources are widely distributed, involving both public cultural institutions and cultural production departments. The data standards, storage formats, and interface specifications of all parties are not the same, making it difficult for data to interconnect and be shared and reused. Taking Song Dynasty culture as an example, Lingyin Temple's Zen patterns, the palace regulations of Deshou Palace, and the folk materials of Songcheng each have their own "treasures," but they are not interconnected. However, without systematic cultural corpora, the content output by AI will be difficult to integrate comprehensively and may even deviate. Therefore, it is necessary to further promote co-construction and sharing of data, build a unified cultural tourism data standard system, and let data truly flow and become nutrients nourishing cultural tourism development.
For example, "computing power fuel" is not yet inclusive enough. Some say that large models emerge one after another, and behind them computing power is silently "supplying oxygen" to the industry. Reports show that one training run of GPT-3 consumes 1,287 megawatt-hours, roughly equivalent to the total electricity consumption of 3,000 Teslas each driving 200,000 miles. For AI empowering cultural tourism, the support and guarantee of computing power are even more critical. High-performance computing resources are expensive, and for small and medium-sized cultural and creative enterprises, cultural and museum venues at all levels, and local scenic areas, they are a considerable burden. Industry progress and industrial upgrading cannot rely only on a single enterprise's breakthrough at one point; they require coordinated evolution across the entire chain, including technology research and development, equipment manufacturing, and market application. More entities should be allowed to enter, participate together, and share the benefits.
For example, the adaptability of "vertical models" still needs improvement. General large models have broad knowledge coverage, but the cultural tourism industry has diverse scenarios and complex formats. Information such as ticket prices, visitor flow, transportation, and event schedules is continuously and dynamically updated. General models find it hard to keep up with on-site changes and are prone to being ill-suited, even giving distorted answers. For example, when tourists inquire about real-time conditions at a scenic area, a general model may cite expired information; when planning tour routes, it is also easy to overlook some unexpected situations. Therefore, it is necessary to refine dedicated models based on segmented scenarios such as cultural museums, scenic areas, and cultural creativity, continuously input real-time cultural tourism corpora for specific scenarios and specific regions, and let AI understand the unique rules of the cultural tourism industry and output more truthful, accurate, and practical content.
In August last year, the "Guiding Opinions of the State Council on Deeply Implementing the 'Artificial Intelligence +' Action" was issued, clearly proposing to "layout and build a batch of national artificial intelligence application pilot bases." As the first national-level artificial intelligence application pilot base in the cultural field, the National Artificial Intelligence Application Pilot Base (Cultural Tourism) carries a special mission and is committed to creating an innovation source for "AI + cultural tourism," which is cause for anticipation.
How to make creation "effortless"? The application scenarios of artificial intelligence in music, painting, film and television, and other fields are becoming increasingly rich. With a rich digital resource foundation and intelligent creation tools, it can both greatly enrich creative materials and help stimulate creative inspiration and shorten creation cycles. For example, game production companies can use the pilot base's ancient architecture gene bank to greatly reduce modeling costs; intangible cultural heritage handicraft practitioners can use AI cultural and creative design to let old crafts continue and be passed down in a modern aesthetic way; content creators can use new audiovisual intelligent creation tools to generate video drafts, investing more energy in creative ideas and content polishing, greatly improving work efficiency.
How to keep cultural lineages "enduring endlessly"? Zhejiang has more than 70,000 registered immovable cultural relics, among which a large number of lower-level cultural relics have long relied on manual inspections and experiential judgment for protection, and when facing challenges such as natural erosion and interrupted transmission, it is easy to feel "willing but powerless." In this regard, AI also has much to offer. It can break down data barriers among cultural and museum institutions and, combined with technologies such as multimodal perception, intelligently monitor the health of ancient buildings and analyze the logic of intangible cultural heritage crafts, realizing a shift from "passive rescue" to "active guardianship." For example, the ancient architecture "health doctor" intelligent agent established on the basis of the pilot base's ancient architecture gene bank has absorbed more than 40 years of data resources accumulated by the Zhejiang Provincial Ancient Architecture Design and Research Institute. It can intelligently identify more than 10 types of diseases with an accuracy rate of over 87%, becoming an effective supplement to grassroots cultural protection forces. It has currently carried out pilots in Hangzhou, Shaoxing, and other places. Ancient architecture inspection and diagnosis model Image source: Chao News client.
How to make experiences "understanding"? Cultural tourism is different from other industries; it carries people's emotions. Therefore, large models in the cultural tourism industry cannot be trained only behind closed doors in laboratories. They should plunge into real cultural tourism sites full of everyday life, combine tourist preferences, touring trajectories, and travel rhythms, and anticipate potential needs. For example, the "Follow the Textbook to Tour Shaoxing" one-machine tour platform launched by pilot base resident enterprise Youzhu Yunlv is a useful attempt. Walking into Lu Xun's Hometown, the AI Lu Xun intelligent agent, based on where tourists stop and how long they stay, explains the crickets of Baicao Garden and the ruler of Sanwei Study as a touchable and perceptible period of old times; when arriving at popular scenic areas, discount coupons are pushed at the right time, and cultural consumption has the convenience of being available anytime, anywhere, and immediately.
How to make the industry "stable and far-reaching"? With the rapid development of AI, issues such as "AI abuse" and "AI hallucinations" have followed. How to build a trustworthy, controllable, and usable AI system has become a core issue in global technology governance. The same is true for the cultural tourism industry: materials from original works are extremely easy to misappropriate and tamper with at will, and creators' rights and interests are difficult to effectively protect. The value of the pilot base lies not only in technological breakthroughs, but also in ecological governance. For example, the literary and artistic copyright and data protection promotion platform unveiled at the pilot base park opening event takes "protecting originality and activating value" as its core, building a full-chain copyright value circulation system that can confirm rights, be searchable, tradable, usable, traceable, and settle accounts, so that creation is respected, protected, and seen.
With good wind to rely on, send me up to the blue clouds. Looking to the future, it is hoped that every technological leap in artificial intelligence is full of humanistic sentiment; every exploration of cultural tourism integration draws on the innovation of the times, allowing "poetry" and "distant places" to shine together in the digital wave.
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