Once an industrial stronghold closed to outsiders, it is now a sought-after new cultural tourism landmark. In recent years, industrial tourism has continued to gain popularity, from intelligent automobile manufacturing to shipbuilding and heavy industry, from aerospace to clean energy, a number of major national projects have opened their doors, allowing the public to get close to China's hard industrial power. Breaking away from the traditional sightseeing model, industrial tourism is driving a profound transformation of cultural tourism, making travel more than scenery and leisure, but also an immersive classroom for appreciating the power of scientific innovation, paying tribute to craftsmanship, and nurturing patriotic feelings. Recently, reporters from this newspaper traveled to three industrial landmarks for on-site interviews, using the booming industrial cultural tourism trend to decode new momentum for industrial integration. 鈥擡ditor

FAW Group 鈥?From many "firsts" to smart manufacturing

Reported by Liu Yiqing

On a weekend with crisp autumn air, in front of Gate No. 1 of the FAW plant area on Dongfeng Street in Changchun, Jilin Province, under the plaque of the China FAW Museum, the line of people curved around the corner. Looking closely at the queue, there were middle-aged people carrying cameras as well as young parents holding their children's hands. "My child loves cars, and we have lots of toy cars at home," said Liu Na, a resident visiting from Beijing with a smile. "Changchun has a deep automobile culture. Taking advantage of the holiday, I brought my child to take a look."

On June 23, the Ministry of Commerce and seven other departments announced pilot cities for automobile distribution and consumption reform, including Changchun, with the key reform and innovation direction being automobile culture. On July 21, the China FAW Museum, jointly built by Changying Group, Changchun Cultural Tourism Group, and FAW Group, officially opened. What is there to see in automobile culture?

As they spoke, the museum doors opened, with clearwater red brick walls, old steel hanging beams, and old production slogans preserved as they were. The museum was converted from the tool workshop of the First Automobile Works, and the workshop itself is an industrial heritage site, listed in 2013 as a major historical and cultural site protected at the national level. The construction team "restored it as it was," not only preserving old objects such as the old quenching furnace and the Hongqi assembly platform, but also consulting retired FAW veteran employees to recreate multiple scenes including the original tool workshop, central design office, and workers' night school.

Pointing to the overall layout plan from the factory's early days, the docent began to explain: In 1953, FAW broke ground, and 28 provinces dispatched manpower and materials in support; in the summer of 1954, it rained for 44 consecutive days, and the builders worked in the rain without delaying the schedule by a single day... Walking deeper into the exhibition hall, nearly 150 vehicle models from different eras were lined up in sequence. New China's first Dongfeng sedan, the classic Hongqi CA770 bulletproof car, the "Tiannian No. 1" flying car... Following the crowd, Liu Na stopped in front of a dark green truck. The headlights had been polished bright, and the nameplate on the front read: In July 1956, the first Jiefang CA10 truck rolled off the production line, ending the history of New China being unable to make automobiles.

"I not only saw the history of the automobile industry, but also saw that behind the achievements are workers who spare no effort and pull together," Liu Na said with emotion. "We have collected many 'firsts' in the history of New China's automobile industry, including the first automobile, the first sedan, and the first high-grade sedan. We hope that through one museum, we can tell the story of Changchun's automobile industry as systematically and completely as possible," said Pan Cheng, a staff member of the preparatory group of the China FAW Museum.

"After looking at the road we came from, let's go see the modern automobile production area." Leaving the museum, Liu Na took her family along the "Changchun Automobile Industrial Cultural Tourism" route to the Fanrong plant of the Hongqi Manufacturing Center. In the welding workshop, more than 700 robotic arms rose and fell in unison, with welding sparks flashing. The robotic arms precisely and efficiently completed welding and other work, and now here, a Hongqi vehicle rolls off the line in less than a minute. In July 2024, Changchun opened an automobile industrial tourism route, starting from FAW Gate No. 1 and linking points including the Hongqi factory, FAW Technology Innovation Base, Qixin Power Plant, and Audi FAW New Energy Plant, covering the full chain of automobile history, cultural display, and smart manufacturing. Over two years, nearly 400,000 visitors have entered automobile factories along this route. This year, the route added new content: the study course "1953: National Expectations and FAW's Answer" moved the classroom into the plant area, and the mobile immersive bus drama "Steel Torrent on the Wilderness" brought automobile industry history to life nearby.

By transforming industrial assets into cultural tourism resources, Changchun has actively cultivated new scenarios, new formats, and new models for automobile consumption in recent years, enriching tourism offerings through hosting international automobile expos, developing automobile cultural tourism routes, holding the Changchun Rally, and launching automobile-themed trendy cultural and creative products. Industrial tourism is also driving industrial development. Frontline production scenes help visitors better understand brands. In 2025, Changchun's automobile industry completed output value exceeding 404 billion yuan, and the "Changchun Automobile Cluster" was shortlisted as a national advanced manufacturing cluster.

Jiangnan Shipyard Industrial Tourism Base 鈥?From "No Admittance" to a popular check-in spot

Reported by Cao Lingjuan

"Would you like to go see where the Fujian ship set sail?" This hardcore invitation from Jiangnan Shipyard is hard not to be tempted by. Driving northeast from downtown Shanghai and passing through a long river-crossing tunnel, you arrive at Changxing Island. Where the river opens wide, giant gantry cranes and spectacular docks come into view. This is the Jiangnan Shipyard Industrial Tourism Base in Shanghai. Jiangnan Shipyard's predecessor was the Jiangnan Machinery Manufacturing Bureau established in 1865, which pioneered China's modern national industry. "Major national projects have their most direct expression here. This unique charm has attracted more and more tourists," said Jiang Han, director of the market operations department of Shanghai CSSC Culture Media Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Jiangnan Shipyard. Since Jiangnan Shipyard officially launched industrial tourism in 2019, the number of visitors to the base has continued to rise, and to date it has received more than 330,000 visitors in total. In 2022, the Jiangnan Shipyard Industrial Tourism Base was selected as a national industrial tourism demonstration base. China's first propeller-driven steamship, the "Caojiang," was born here, and the first domestically produced catapult-equipped aircraft carrier, the Fujian, cast off from here...

Entering the Jiangnan Shipyard exhibition hall, students from Shanghai Shinan Middle School were standing under the photo wall, listening to the ups and downs of Jiangnan Shipyard's story. Whichever photo the docent's laser pointer touched, information about the corresponding ship would be enlarged on the electronic screen. In the lecture hall, popular science videos told students about the process from cutting a steel plate to joining a 10,000-ton giant ship. From "no admittance" to becoming a popular industrial tourism destination, as a key national military enterprise, Jiangnan Shipyard did not simply open its doors, but polished industrial tourism as carefully as shipbuilding, opening in "zones and phases" within safety red lines and providing genuinely tangible patriotic education. "Its very existence is a silent epic, telling how a nation regrouped from a century of vicissitudes and forged a solid shield to protect peace with technology and will," said Zhang Tingzhen, a student at Shinan Middle School, proudly after a study trip at the Jiangnan Shipyard Industrial Tourism Base.

Taking a bus to the dock production site, the grand dock embraced several giant ships under construction. Large container ships and liquefied natural gas carriers undergoing debugging and outfitting moved slowly in the dry dock, and the work site with more than 30,000 workers was orderly. Visitors watched with great interest, and the docent spoke vividly: "That ship is nearly 400 meters long, equivalent to a skyscraper turned sideways" and "the transport volume of one liquefied natural gas carrier could supply the entire city of Shanghai for a month"... The steel skeletons, blue sky, and blue waves complemented each other, and industrial production blended with humanistic spirit, bursting with awe-inspiring power. Immersive ship model building was also an important part. In hands-on practice simulating shipbuilding team operations in groups, the classroom became a "mini shipyard," and visitors learned about ship structure disassembly and assembly as well as the principles of block manufacturing. "The precision of installing important components such as the power system and electrical control system often needs to be controlled within 0.06 millimeters, comparable to a hair," said a frontline "Jiangnan craftsman," sharing the rigorous attitude of shipbuilders toward "zero error, zero hidden danger," allowing visitors to experience the craftsmanship spirit of "millimeter-level dedication." "We hope to let young people look up in front of 10,000-ton giant ships and plant the seed of 'I want to build ships' 鈥?this is the most important starting point for us in carefully developing industrial tourism," Jiang Han said frankly.

As the birthplace of China's modern industry and a concentration of China's contemporary industry, Shanghai is transforming a century of industrial accumulation into a unique urban cultural tourism experience. Here, COMAC, SAIC Motor, Jiangnan Shipyard, Baosteel... one resounding name after another is entering ordinary people's lives with a more approachable posture.

Hainan Commercial Spacecraft Launch Site 鈥?From "taking a chance" to regularly "chasing rockets"

Reported by Sun Haitian

The tour group stopped in front of the launch pad. Chen Nianchang, who stood at the front of the group giving explanations, wore the work uniform of Hainan International Commercial Aerospace Launch Co., Ltd. This talkative "tour guide" had another identity 鈥?an operator in the methane group of the launch company, usually responsible for launch support at his post. It turned out that a recent launch schedule was temporarily adjusted, and many tourists who had already rushed to Wenchang, Hainan, to watch the rocket launch did not return home, but instead came to visit the launch pad. Reception was temporarily overwhelmed, so the company drew on frontline personnel during the mission gap to support the explanations. Since its first launch on November 30, 2024, through August this year, the Hainan Commercial Spacecraft Launch Site in Wenchang, Hainan, has achieved 21 consecutive successful launches, and "a launch every month" has gradually become the norm. Together with the neighboring China Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site, the two launch sites are in the same city, and waiting for a rocket has changed from "taking a chance" to a trip that can be arranged in advance, making "rocket chasers" regular visitors. "In the past, watching a rocket launch was 'taking a chance,' but now 'chasing rockets' has become routine. After watching the ceremony, we also want to understand the ins and outs behind the rocket," a tourist from Henan told reporters.

Ma Xia, who does aerospace tourism reception in Wenchang, has been rooted here for nearly 10 years and has almost filled her calendar with launch dates. Of the 51 launch missions carried out by the China Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site, she watched 49; she was also on site every time for launches after the Hainan Commercial Spacecraft Launch Site was completed. "In nearly 10 years in Wenchang, I have come to regard myself as a Wenchang local." In recent years, she has taken tourists from all over the country to wait for rocket ignition by the sea, and has also begun planning new routes: taking children into rocket workshops and inviting experts to explain face to face.

Standing below the pad, the question tourists asked most was: Why does the rocket leave lying down? The answer was in the workshop a few hundred meters away. There, the rocket completes assembly, testing, and transfer in a horizontal position, is transported to the pad, raised as a whole, and can be launched after fueling. "A rocket that leaves lying down and launches once upright greatly compresses the time it occupies the launch area," Chen Nianchang explained. Fueling is the part he deals with every day. "At my post, I watch parameters and valves. Standing in front of tourists, I have to explain these in words they can understand," he said.

After leaving the launch site, the tourists' curiosity did not end. This summer, the Wenchang Aerospace Science Popularization Center received 44,000 visitors. Song Hao, a 12-year-old boy from Tianjin, put on mixed reality glasses to simulate a space station extravehicular mission. Taking off the device, he pulled his mother's hand and ran to the next experience area: "I saw the Earth! It's blue, so beautiful!" At the aerospace supercomputing center, how satellite data is collected, transmitted back to the ground, and then used to serve agriculture and transportation was presented to visitors through screens and interactive projects. "Students not only want to see rockets lift off, but also want to know the complete story behind them," said Ye Shiyang, chairman of Wenchang Aerospace Supercomputing Smart Technology Co., Ltd. With launch viewing, visits, and science popularization connected in sequence, a trip made for a rocket extends from half a day to two or three days. If tourists stay one more night, the town gains one more business opportunity. In 2025, Longlou Town, Wenchang's "aerospace town," saw more than 400,000 visitors, with tourism revenue reaching 60 million yuan. After the explanation ended, Chen Nianchang returned to his post, and the next mission continued on schedule. The tourists continued to the next stop, looking forward to the flames of the rocket rising into the sky.