China's 2019 'red tourism' revenue tops 400b yuan

BEIJING — The revenue generated by "red tourism" across China in 2019 exceeded 400 billion yuan (about $62.2 billion), an official with the National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA) said on May 19.

In 2019, the country saw a total of 1.4 billion red tourism trips, or revolution-themed trips, Gu Yucai, deputy director of the NCHA, told a press conference in Beijing.

Many tourist sites bearing revolutionary history have become a popular choice among Chinese tourists, especially young people, augmenting the fervor of red tourism, Gu added.

Revolution-themed trips have also contributed to poverty alleviation in some old revolutionary base areas, according to Gu.

Gu said that over 73 million trips were made to Yan'an, a former revolutionary base of the Communist Party of China (CPC), in Northwest China's Shaanxi province, in 2019. He added that red tourism garnered 49.5 billion yuan in 2020 for the place despite the COVID-19 containment measures.

Gu said that a memorial hall in Rucheng county of Central China's Hunan province was built to tell people the 1934 story of three young female Red Army soldiers who halved their quilt for a local countrywoman.

It attracts an enormous number of tourists to the poverty-stricken region every year, and therefore boosts the local economic and social development, he added.

This year marks the centenary of the CPC.