China Focus: Smart tech to empower tourism, enhance experience of foreign visitors

BEIJING, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- At the ongoing 2024 China International Fair for Trade in Services in Beijing, China is witnessing a surge in the use of smart technologies in its tourism industry, highlighting the potential to provide the growing number of foreign tourists with greater convenience and more immersive journeys.

In addition to a humanoid robot with bobbed hair that speaks multiple languages, virtual try-on machines that generate stylized images for tourists at popular scenic spots, and mini-apps that automatically create customized itineraries, a wide range of innovative technologies have come into the spotlight, all promising to unlock the competitiveness of Chinese tourism among global tourists.

Swift payments have a significant impact on the overall experience of inbound tourists. To tackle payment inconvenience among foreign visitors, China's State Council released a guideline on improving payment services in March, pointing out the direction for further facilitating payment for foreigners through technical improvements.

At a special payment services counter at the fair, established with the joint efforts of Weixin Pay, the digital payment service of Chinese technology company Tencent, foreign exhibitors can learn about China's upgraded payment services in 12 different languages.

"Participants from Spain, Mongolia, the Maldives and Norway have all come to us to learn about how to add their bank cards and use QR codes to pay for things in China," said Qin Tianxiong, a product manager of Weixin Pay international cards service.

To better cater to international visitors, Weixin Pay further streamlined its services in February of this year, allowing inbound tourists to add international bank cards to their WeChat accounts by simply entering a card number, expiry date and security code, while requiring no identification information for payments no more than 2,000 U.S. dollars, according to Qin.

As tens of millions of merchants accept Weixin Pay, Qin said that the upgraded services have benefited over 1 million foreigners.

Compared with the data before the services were improved in July 2023, the total amount of transactions made by foreign tourists through Weixin Pay in China this July increased more than fourfold, and the number of transactions almost quadrupled, according to Qin.

Tourists from around the world can now pay for various services with ease, including accommodation, transportation, dining and entertainment services, without needing to open a bank account in China. A simple scan of the e-payment code is all that is required.

In 2023, China recorded 82 million inbound tourist arrivals, and the country is expected to return to its 2019 visitor level by 2026, according to a green paper on China's inbound tourism, which was released by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) and the World Tourism Cities Federation at a tourism conference held on the sidelines of the fair.

"We can provide a wide range of payment methods to ensure that foreign visitors can have a smooth journey while visiting China. We will make their journey convenient and hassle-free," Qin said.

Combining traditional Chinese culture with modern technology in the context of tourism is also a key topic that is drawing the attention of enterprises.

There is an urgent need for China, a country with a rich and extensive history spanning over 5,000 years, to provide inbound tourists with a more participative and engaging tourism experience, particularly for the younger generations, according to Peter Semone, chairman of PATA.

Optical motion capture, an advanced technology utilized in the creation of the popular Chinese video game "Black Myth: Wukong," has demonstrated strong potential in addressing the need.

In the exhibition hall of the trade fair, a young man dressed in a black jumpsuit was seen vigorously waving a wooden stick, while multiple cameras snapped images. His every movement was being captured and transformed into a series of bold actions by the virtual monkey king displayed on the big screen behind him.

The secret of the quick capture of performance lies within the cameras positioned around the actor and the markers attached to the actor's body. As the camera captures the reflective markers, the movements of real-world characters can be digitally translated into swift and smooth running, jumping and sprinting movements in the virtual world.

Liu Yaodong, chairman and CEO of Beijing Virtual Point Technology Co., Ltd., a leading company in space calculation and optical motion capture, has noticed the huge space for motion tracking in China's tourism industry.

A virtual reality project at a museum in central China's Hunan Province is a prime example. By employing 66 motion capture cameras and a set of customized cultural relics props, museum visitors are granted the opportunity to embark on a journey back to ancient times, during which they can engage in interactions with ancient artifacts.

"With motion capture, foreign tourists have the opportunity to engage with natural landscapes and cultural relics, allowing them to gain a deeper understanding of China's rich history, culture and picturesque landscapes," Liu said.

Just displaying beautiful old cultural relics from thousands of years ago might result in aesthetic fatigue among inbound tourists, said Semone. "I think this is an opportunity for China to allow the tourists to start to engage a bit more in the culture," he said.

Semone added that China, with its vast market and extensive experience in managing a significant influx of tourists, has the potential to not only benefit from inbound travel but also export smart technologies to enhance global tourism.