The authorities of West Lake District are building “eight top-ten” cultural tourism brands to attract investment, boost consumption and promote integrated development of culture and tourism, including food stores, inns, souvenirs, shows, fairs, cultural experience spots, exhibition events and sightseeing routes.

The “Six-six Actions” is a masterplan the district authority proposed this year to make itself a role model in cultural exchanges with the world. To boost the Asian Games economy and the “culture plus” industry, the “eight top-ten” cultural tourism products are being created to make the local sightseeing business prosper again.

For a long time, West Lake District has been an attraction to visitors from all over the world for its splendid scenes and resources. Take the B&B as an example. Scenic areas, like the tea gardens of Longwu, Qingzhiwu near the botanical garden and Lanli away from the urban prosperity, are now filled with inns particularly with unique local flavors. Yihejia Lanli B&B, for example, is a designated one for the Asian Games, and another six B&Bs, such as Gushan Longwu B&B and Qiyue Liubai B&B, are the first ones on a list of Zhejiang’s best natural accommodations.

To make them well-known, policies are given to make use of idle spaces, residences and old buildings into B&B accommodations that can help spur the sales of local produces and get more people hired. Meanwhile, inn owners are encouraged to develop gifts, food, cultural products or derivatives to drive up secondary consumption. Efforts will be made by the local authority to develop more than seven countryside inns.

The district is full of fun destinations – you may either take a boat in Xixi wetlands, cycle amidst Longwu’s tea gardens or watch magnificent shows in Songcheng. There’ll be more for this year – like the “top ten shows”. Efforts will be deliberately made to plan for more theme parks, landscape scenes, stage plays and immersive performing shows, and to make IPs like “Xixi Tonight” and “The Romance of the Song Dynasty” more widespread. In the meantime, art schools, cultural facilities and art enthusiasts are called up to perform regular shows on the street or in public spaces, which, in their eyes, is an urban and rural art landscape. The plan will register, by the end of 2023, 40 shows commonly named “The Sparks of the Art”.

The traditional weekend fairs will be continued and made a part of some big, popular events, like Apsara Conference, the 2050 Conference and Zhijiang International Youth Art Festival. Well-sought natural views, like the West Lake, Xixi Wetlands and Tongjian Lake, will also be made important to the district’s top ten sightseeing routes, together with the Asian Games venues, culture centers, landscapes and more popular sites.