Recently, approved and agreed by the State Council, the Ministry of Cultural and Tourism officially issued the "15th Five-Year Plan" for Building a Tourism Powerhouse, establishing a new three-tier tourism development pattern of "Hub — Key — Characterized" across the nation. The millennium-old ancient capital Datong successfully joined the ranks of national key tourism cities, officially integrating into the top-level layout of national tourism powerhouse construction. This heavyweight empowerment from a national-level strategy is not only a high affirmation of Datong's cultural tourism transformation achievements, but it also injects brand-new momentum into Datong's construction as an internationally renowned cultural tourism destination.
Based on the overall situation of high-quality development of cultural tourism nationwide, this national "Plan" scientifically classifies urban functional levels. Datong, along with domestic well-known cultural tourism cities such as Chengde, Qinhuangdao, Luoyang, and Guilin, has been included in the national key tourism city matrix, shoulder the important mission of cultural tourism radiation, industrial driving, and foreign exchange in the northern region.
Datong is located in the hinterland where Shanxi, Hebei, and Inner Mongolia provinces meet, and sits at the core intersection of two national cultural tourism corridors: the Great Wall and the Taihang Mountains. It is a rare cultural tourism node city in the north that integrates a profound ancient capital culture, magnificent frontier scenery, and an excellent ecological environment. With an average summer temperature of 21°C and fresh air, it is a natural summer resort and wellness paradise in North China, possessing unique advantages for developing all-for-one, all-season, and all-weather tourism. Relying on regional climate and historical resources, Datong continues to promote the quality and capacity expansion of all-for-one tourism, achieving a qualitative leap from "point-like blooming" to "forming a trend in clusters and upgrading across the whole region". Currently, it boasts 38 A-level tourist attractions, including 1 5A-grade, 12 4A-grade, and 25 3A-grade, constructing a modernized cultural tourism pattern led by the world-class cultural IP of the Yungang Grottoes, supported by the five core resources of Mount Heng's Hanging Temple, Datong Ancient City, the Ming Great Wall, and the Volcano Group, and multi-point linked and echelon-developed by featured attractions in counties and districts.
Over the years, Datong has insisted on shaping tourism with culture and showcasing culture through tourism, deeply excavating the multi-element blending cultural core of the Northern Wei capital, the Liao and Jin secondary capital, and the Great Wall frontier. It has continuously restored the fabric of the ancient city, revitalized historical blocks, inherited intangible cultural heritage techniques, and interpreted ancient capital stories. From ancient city night tours and the Southeast Yi Baixi Art Festival to intangible cultural heritage creative products and immersive live-action performances; from ecological wellness and rural micro-vacations to specialized daylily cultural tourism and four-season rural leisure, Datong constantly enriches new business models and expands new scenarios, achieving beautiful scenery and tourism availability in all four seasons.
While upgrading business formats, Datong adheres to tourism for the people and cultural tourism benefiting the people, polishing the city brand of heartwarming hospitality. It continues to optimize the public service system of tourism, implementing public-benefit measures such as extending opening hours of scenic spots, providing free public welfare commentary, fair-priced consumption, smart travel, and improving accessibility facilities. It has built an integrated smart cultural tourism platform and established a rapid response and closed-loop disposal mechanism for tourism-related complaints, conveying the city's warmth through refined services.
Based on the brand-new national strategic positioning of the "15th Five-Year Plan", Datong City precisely connects with various deployments for building a tourism powerhouse, anchors the construction goal of an internationally renowned cultural tourism destination, and comprehensively starts a new journey of quality improvement and upgrading for the high-quality development of the cultural tourism industry.
Facing the future, Datong will firmly seize the major policy opportunities of the national-level planning, continue to strengthen leading scenic spots, optimize business formats, enhance services, and polish its brand. It will focus on promoting the quality upgrade of the Yungang Grottoes, the creation of a 5A-grade scenic spot for Mount Heng, the revitalization of the ancient city, and the construction of national-level nighttime cultural tourism consumption zones. Surrounding the layout of "One Core, One Ring, and Multiple Zones", it will develop featured formats such as study tours, summer resorts, wellness, ice and snow, and rural tourism, cultivating new quality productive forces for cultural tourism. It will increase the frequency of international air routes, perfect inbound services, and build a northward cultural tourism gateway for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. By revitalizing Northern Wei, frontier, and Great Wall cultures, it will construct an all-for-one and all-season cultural tourism industrial system, pushing the tourism industry to become a pillar industry and a happiness-inducing industry.
