Digital approaches fuel cultural, tourism industry amid epidemic

   BEIJING, March 25 -- China's cultural and tourism industry has turned to digital approaches to deflect the blow delivered by the novel coronavirus, picking up steam in its recovery and boosting fledgling businesses such as virtual tours.
   With offline cultural activities and tourism affected by the epidemic, digital forms such as online music, livestreaming, cloud exhibitions, smart tourism and others based on 5G and artificial intelligence have been growing, said China Tourism Daily citing a report.
   Museums around the country have launched more than 2,000 online exhibitions, receiving over 5 billion views in total, according to the digital cultural and tourism industry development index report.
   China's major online travel agency Trip.com Group launched a "cloud tour" campaign in February, inviting tour guiding service providers to make over 7,000 audio guides free for tourists online.
   On March 1, the Potala Palace, a landmark in China's Tibet Autonomous Region, held a livestreaming tour the first time in its over 1,300-year history. The tour received about 920,000 views.
   The report also published a quarterly index of digital cultural and tourism industry development in China. The index is based on the scale of the cultural and tourism industry, information technology infrastructure and the development of the digital economy, among other indicators.
   According to the report, Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu scored highest in the index for the first three months of 2020, signaling the most dynamic development of their digital cultural and tourism industries. Xinhua