Published by ChinaMNC · Chongxin

What Foreign Founders Can Learn from Pingliang's Cultural Tourism and Wellness Strategy

Pingliang's five-year push to make cultural tourism and wellness its lead industry offers practical lessons for foreign founders on leveraging local cultural assets and avoiding homogenized development.

Pingliang's Cultural Tourism and Wellness Push: Lessons for Foreign Founders

When China's cultural tourism sector shifted from chasing scale to pursuing quality, Pingliang—a small city in the heart of the Loess Plateau—faced a choice: copy the old formula of faux-ancient streets, glass walkways, and internet-famous swings, or return to its own landscape and cultural roots to innovate new scenes and upgrade services. Pingliang chose the latter. Since the city's fifth Party Congress, it has treated cultural tourism and wellness as its "lead industry," accumulating momentum over five years. By moving beyond the path dependence of "selling tickets and viewing attractions," and using nature as the foundation, culture as the soul, and wellness as the medium, Pingliang has reshaped its cultural tourism identity through "localized new expressions." For foreign founders registering or operating a company in China, this approach offers practical insights into leveraging local cultural assets and avoiding homogenized development.

Reviving Cultural Resources Through New Narratives

Five years ago, Pingliang's cultural resources largely lay dormant in classics and historic sites. Kongtong Mountain had the name of "Daoist origin" but lacked systematic philosophical interpretation; ancient town festivals were lively for a few days and then fell silent; rural ancient villages were emptied of people, and kiln fires nearly extinguished. Change began with a fresh look at cultural roots. This year's most prominent cultural tourism project was Shanhe Ji · Kongtong Volume, a cultural tourism integration brand project by the Social Education Program Center of China Media Group, with its first national volume set in Pingliang. As core content, a six-episode special program Kongtong Lun Dao from Lecture Room was filmed on location at Kongtong Mountain. With the authority of a national lecture platform, Kongtong's "Daoist origin" gained clear documentary evidence and ideological context for the first time, interpreted within the overall lineage of fine traditional Chinese culture. For foreign founders, this demonstrates the value of investing in authentic cultural narratives rather than superficial imitation—a principle applicable when building brands or products for the Chinese market.

Creating Immersive Experiences to Retain Visitors

Culture attracts visitors; experience retains them. Pingliang integrated Kongtong Mountain's natural beauty with its thousand-year Daoist heritage to create new "seeking the Dao" tourism scenes. On the mountain, deep courses such as the "Seeking Dao at Kongtong · Sound Healing Across Mountains and Seas" retreat, Li Shaobo's Zhenqi Running Method experience classes, and Kongtong Yijinjing training camps are offered. Cultural mentors explain scriptures, and practice mentors lead exercises—a "dual-mentor guidance" that brings ancient teachings like "embrace the spirit and stay still" from classics into daily life, turning them into perceptible and learnable physical and mental experiences. At the foot of the mountain, the "Pingliang Local Products Market" in Kongtong Ancient Town opened with 80 themed exhibition halls spread along the town, divided into four zones: cultural creativity, wellness, food, and agricultural specialties. Over a hundred merchants from across the city have settled in, giving visitors places to go and spending destinations. Ancient-style parades, Qin opera performances, immersive street shows, and themed music festivals followed, with 142 performances staged in rotation, and related content reaching 280 million views online. This illustrates how combining cultural depth with experiential activities can extend visitor engagement and spending—a model foreign founders might adapt for their own ventures.

Connecting Cultural Nodes into a Cohesive Network

With Shanhe Ji · Kongtong Volume as a catalyst, Pingliang not only made Kongtong Mountain a spiritual landmark of "Daoist origin" but also wove the threads of humanistic aesthetics along the Jing River into its landscape. In Jingchuan, religious customs and artifacts were brought back into daily life. The Wangmu Palace dates back to the Han Dynasty, the Dayun Temple is renowned for its five-layered relic casket, and the Xiwangmu custom is listed as national intangible cultural heritage. Yet these resources were previously fragmented. Change began with "stringing beads into a necklace." The Xiwangmu Cultural Scenic Area is being upgraded, the second phase of Dayun Temple, the Jingzhou Pagoda restoration, and the Huiwu Square paving are completed, and the 381-mu core area is now connected. The Ancient Ruan Kingdom History and Culture Exhibition Hall has broken ground, and an agricultural-tourism-wine culture complex is laid out around the "Gongchi" water source for brewing and tasting. From worship to tasting, culture becomes a life aesthetic that is participatory, portable, and memorable.

In Gao Zhen Village, Ankou Town, Huating, the thousand-year kiln fire has been turned into a living classroom. Ankou Town, historically called "Kiln Head Town," is the core remnant of "Longshang Kiln." Following the approach of "protection first, tracing origins, activating utilization," the town restored jar walls, reinforced old walls, and protected ancient kilns and porcelain shard layers in situ. The ceramic experience hall's main structure is complete, and the forecourt, visitor center, and ring road are being improved. The ancient village is transforming from a "hollow village" back into a "living kiln village." Local authorities are linking the art rural construction society, sandware factory, ceramic art museum, and Gao Zhen ancient village to plan a tourism route of "ancient kiln exploration—workshop experience—military industry memory," using AR to recreate virtual kiln fires and turning the old ceramic factory, tunnel kiln, and Third Front construction sites into walkable industrial memories.

Applying Local Aesthetics to Rural Tourism

Five years ago, Pingliang's villages and scenic areas had good landscapes but mostly remained at the shallow sightseeing stage of "looking at views and taking photos." The loess gullies, million-mu terraces, and ancient locust tree clusters lacked creative expression. Xigou Village in Kongtong Town, known as the "first village at the foot of Kongtong Mountain," has quietly gained fame through "local aesthetics." Without major construction, original loess cave dwellings nestle against the mountain, the Yanzi River flows through the village, and 80% forest coverage makes Xigou a natural oxygen bar. Here, the land is the best design: a wooden tea table set by the river, with sunset, mountain views, and Kongtong Eight Treasures tea creating a simple and refined "mountain afternoon tea." At night, the outline of Kongtong Mountain faintly visible under the stars, the warm yellow lights of "Kongtong Mountain Residence · Yunqi · Yinsu" cave homestays light up one by one, with daily reservations hard to secure, dubbed by netizens as the "ceiling of loess aesthetics." In a year, the village received over 80,000 visitors and tourism comprehensive income exceeded 15 million yuan.

Pingliang has built a "1+N" tourism loop system of "one major loop, multiple small loops," connecting the artery from Kongtong Mountain to Liuhu Warm Spring, Haizhai Gully, Wangmu Palace, Huangfu Mi's Hometown, Longquan Temple, Lianhua Terrace, Yunya Temple, Zhaona Marsh, Jieshipu, and Maiji Mountain, stringing scattered pearls into a necklace. On this "necklace," each "bead" undergoes meticulous "micro-renovation and refined improvement." Zhuanglang has turned its million-mu terraces into a land art landscape, with viewing platforms and farming experiences along the Guanshan range—flower seas in spring, wheat waves in autumn—becoming a "natural viewfinder" for sketching and wellness destinations. Jingchuan's Tianjiagou has turned loess gullies into a soil and water conservation aesthetic sample, relying on thousand-year earth arrow clusters, hundred-million-year geological specimen rocks, and lakeside wooden boardwalks to transform a soil erosion control area into a national 4A-level water conservancy scenic area; lawn camping, fishing and boating, and a water conservation science museum are linked, with single-day visitor flow nearing 9,000 on holidays. Zhaowan Village in Jinping Town, Chongxin County, follows the natural contours of the Ru River bend, ancient locust clusters, and rolling plateaus, turning thousand-year locust trees, century-old houses, and the Ru River old spring into the spatial framework of "locust shade nostalgia," making the river, ancient trees, and loess ridges themselves a walkable and stoppable scenic route.

Activating Heritage Through Living Transmission

Five years ago, many scenic spots in Pingliang displayed cultural relics statically; visitors would take a quick look and leave. Over five years, Pingliang has adhered to the concept of living transmission, excavating local culture, and building brand IPs to make static cultural relics experiential and resonant. Liuhu in the city center is the most picturesque focal point. In the first year of Xining in the Northern Song Dynasty, Cai Ting, governor of Weizhou, "led springs to form a lake and planted willows around it," and the garden has benefited the area for a thousand years. In the Ming Dynasty, the Han Prince's mansion enclosed Liuhu as a royal garden, and Emperor Wuzong ordered the construction of "Chongwen Academy." This year, it was "re-lit": rainwater storage and trail lighting renovations gave the old garden a new look, the Zuo Gong Willow ancient tree cluster received special rejuvenation, and 28 stone inscriptions of poems about Liuhu from past dynasties were embedded along the lakeside trail. The former royal songs have become everyday sounds. From May to October, the "Enjoy Liuhu Summer Rhyme" national trend garden party ran for over five months. Pipa melodies played before Shuiyun Pavilion, and Dunhuang dance and flute solos appeared on the mid-lake flower boat every weekend; at night, the North Gate Square switched from a "craft beer + food + entertainment" market to a "lake light concert." Whether morning or dusk, there is always music, tea fragrance, and laughter, allowing every visitor to settle body and mind and encounter the most beautiful Pingliang.

If Liuhu is Pingliang's "eyebrow and eyes," flowing with a thousand years of tenderness, then Lingtai Acupuncture Town is Pingliang's "meridians," harboring deep wellness wisdom. Here, with "acupuncture Dao" as the core IP, Huangfu Mi's Zhenjiu Jiayijing is awakened from ancient texts and turned into vivid cultural tourism scenes. The town creates a reclusive atmosphere of "gathering herbs in the mountains and hanging a gourd to heal the world." Walking through, one can almost see ancient physicians identifying herbs in the herb garden and brewing tea by the clear spring; buildings and landscapes follow nature, blending seamlessly into the landscape painting. In the acupuncture Dao hall, experience the mystery of each needle and acupoint; in the wellness workshop, handcraft an herbal remedy. From Baduanjin practice to traditional Chinese medicine culture lectures, the ancient way of acupuncture is given modern aesthetics and practical value, allowing cultural relics to truly enter modern life.

Five years of accumulation, a momentum achieved in a single day. Pingliang's practice proves that a small western city need not chase on the track of "a thousand cities, one face." By returning to its own landscape and cultural roots, reshaping identity with local aesthetics, activating dormant resources with living transmission, and extending the value chain with wellness formats, it can also forge its own path in the era of high-quality cultural tourism development. For foreign founders, the lesson is clear: success in China's market often comes from authentic localization and leveraging unique local assets, not from copying generic models. This summary is based on information published by the relevant Chinese government website and is general information, not legal or tax advice.