During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, adhering to general secretary Xi Jinping’s cultural ideology, guided by the integration of culture with tourism and of culture with technology, and taking the opportunity of hosting the 5th Hunan Tourism Development Conference, Huaihua has achieved a high-quality development of cultural and tourism industry, transforming it from a transportation hub to a tourist city.
Huaihua has upgraded to a higher level on cultural and tourism development during the 14th Five Year Plan period. It has successfully established 24 national A-level tourist attractions, 1 national nighttime cultural and tourism consumption cluster, 2 five-star hotels, and 2 national A-level homestays, attracting a large number of tourists. During the National Day and Mid Autumn Festival holidays of 2025, the total number of tourists and operating income across Huaihua increased by 143% and 94.8% respectively year-on-year, ranking first in Hunan province in terms of growth rate.
With market-oriented operation, Huaihua has introduced world-renowned hotels such as Wyndham Hotel and Crowne Plaza Hotel, as well as some Top 500 Enterprises to this city. In addition, it has also attracted top professional operation teams to this city, such as Mango Culture and Tourism Group and Liard Group, which enhances its brand popularity and market competitiveness, and lays a solid foundation for creating a core attractive tourist destination, stimulating consumer potential, and cultivating new economic momentum.
Huaihua actively integrates into the Zhangjiajie International Tourism Zone. By deepening coordinated development with multiple regions such as Zhangjiajie and Jishou cities, Xuefengshan Mountain scenic area, and Chengdu and Chongqing cities, Huaihua has achieved an integrated development of tourism resources, tourism routes, tourism markets, and tourism brands both in and beyond Hunan province. With an action of “Intangible Cultural Heritage Going Global” relying on Huaihua International Land Port, Huaihua has built a new blueprint for tourism cooperation with the provinces in central China and the ASEAN countries.
Huaihua promotes the transformation of the cultural and tourism industry from resource independence to technology innovation by deeply exploring tourists’ “experiential value and emotional value”, which not only activates its historical and cultural resources such as agriculture culture, commerce culture, peace culture, Qu Yuan culture, and ancient post-road culture, etc., but also acquires a dual harvest of active cultural inheritance and market benefits. By empowering the integration of science and tourism with cutting-edge technologies such as naked-eye 3D technology, Huaihua has created new immersive tourism formats such as “Fudi Changge Cultural Performance” night tours, which wins great popularity in and beyond Hunan province.
In September of this year, Huaihua successfully hosted the 5th Hunan Tourism Development Conference，which not only makes Huaihua famous across Hunan province, but also makes its cultural and tourism brand of “Blessed Hauihua Brings You a Feeling of Home” popular around the country. The total expenditure of tourists in Huaihua has increased from 34.1 billion yuan in 2020 to 60.8 billion yuan in 2025, allowing more local people to enjoy the benefit and share the dividends of cultural and tourism development.
How to achieve a better tourism development in the future by taking the 5th Hunan Tourism Development Conference as a new starting point?
Huaihua will strengthen macro planning, promote coordinated development of tourism across the region, prepare high-quality “15th Five Year Plan” cultural and tourism plans, and shift cultural and tourism resources from project layout to product system, with a focus on the construction of the Xuefeng Mountain vacation tourism destination and of the Xiaoping Military Industry Camp 1938. By combining together the high-quality tourism resources of various counties, Huaihua will make every effort to create a first-class national tourism and vacation destination.
To attract more tourists from home and abroad, Huaihua will create a highland of cultural and tourism openness by aligning with national development strategies. By deeply integrating into the Zhangjiajie International Tourism Zone and accelerating the development of tourism in the Xuefeng Mountain area, Huaihua will strive to be a tourism distribution center in the boarder areas of Hunan, Guangxi, Guizhou, Chongqing, and Hubei provinces. By relying on Huaihua International Land Port and improving its supporting services, Huaihua will manage to be a popular destination for ASEAN tourists.
Huaihua will spare no effort to create tourism brands and upgrade the quality of scenic spots, with a focus on making Hongjiang Ancient Business Town be a national 5A level scenic spot, Anjiang Agricultural Culture Tourism Zone and Zhijiang Peace Lake be national level tourist resorts, and Yushu Bay Resort be a national level nighttime cultural and tourism consumption cluster.
Huaihua will broaden its development path to empower economic and social development by innovating models to attract more tourists, such as holding activities of “cultural tourism + cultural performances + sports competitions”. Therefore, Huaihua will continue to hold national Dragon Boat Races, provincial Villagers Basket Games, etc,. so as to promote the integration of agriculture, culture and tourism, and improve tourists’ experience of rural tourism, so as to let local people enjoy the benefit of cultural and tourism development, and ultimately to make Huaihua’s tourism brand “Blessed Hauihua Brings You a Feeling of Home” more popular around the country.
(Translated by Chen Min)