Thousands of cars pass through Qilian county, a plateau destination in Northwest China's Qinghai province, at the height of the summer travel season.
One route in particular, Qilian Highway No 9, has become a major draw for travelers. According to figures provided by local cultural and tourism authorities, the route once saw around 400 vehicles a day, a figure that can rise to nearly 9,000 during summer. Qilian now receives more than 3 million tourist visits annually.
The numbers suggest a tourism success story. Yet after visiting Qilian in August with a Tsinghua University field research team, I noticed a contradiction: many travelers came for the scenery, but their experience often seemed to stop there.
Over six days, our team interviewed residents and tourists and held discussions with the county's cultural tourism authorities. We found that tourists often drove through the scenic corridor, stopped to photograph snow-capped mountains and grasslands, and then continued on their way. Much less visible were Qilian's folk traditions, ecological conservation efforts and revolutionary history.
The county has no shortage of such resources. Alongside its mountains, grasslands and other natural attractions, Qilian preserves historical sites linked to the ancient Silk Road and a rich range of local cultural traditions, including centuries-old folk singing and traditional dance.
But having these resources does not necessarily mean visitors will encounter them.
That became clearer when we looked at Qilian's earlier attempts to use technology to improve the tourism experience.
Around 2017 and 2018, the county invested in a smart-tourism big data platform with functions including real-time visitor-flow monitoring, tourist profile analysis, scenic-area management and automatic audio guides. It was an ambitious digital project for a county on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, but the platform was eventually suspended.
Local tourism administrators told us why. Maintaining the system required high third-party service costs, while the county also faced a shortage of locally trained technical personnel and limited fiscal resources for ongoing maintenance and upgrading.
Before the trip, it would have been easy to assume that going digital meant introducing increasingly sophisticated technology. But Qilian showed me that an advanced system is not necessarily a sustainable one if it is too expensive or difficult to maintain locally.
A smaller project we encountered offered a different approach.
One local scenic area has developed a lightweight tourism mini-program that brings together scenic-area information, travel-route recommendations and online ticket purchasing. It also includes Red-themed study-tour programs, such as a 2.5-kilometer simulated Long March hiking route with audio explanations and interactive quizzes for student groups.
Compared with the earlier big-data platform, the mini-program is simpler to operate and maintain.
Yet it, too, faces challenges.
It currently relies heavily on partnerships with travel agencies to reach users, while many independent travelers have difficulty accessing reliable official tourism information before their trips. Travel guides about Qilian on social media can also be scattered, repetitive or inaccurate.
This made me realize that Qilian may not need another large digital project. What it needs may be simpler: better ways for visitors to find reliable information and connect with the stories behind the scenery.
We found a similar gap in cultural and creative products. Young tourists we interviewed were attracted by Qilian's plateau scenery and ethnic culture, but there were relatively few stylish, portable products that reflected Qilian's distinctive character. Many existing souvenirs followed more traditional design styles and had limited appeal to younger visitors.
By the end of our field research, I had begun to see Qilian differently.
At first, its most obvious strengths seemed to be its mountains, grasslands and dramatic plateau scenery. But after speaking with people involved in tourism, culture and local management, I came to understand that the county's challenge is not a lack of things worth seeing — it is how to help visitors see more.
For Qilian, tourism development may not depend on building the largest digital platform or investing in the most complex technology. A lightweight system that can be maintained locally, clearer access to reliable information and cultural products that speak to younger audiences may prove more useful in the long run.
Qilian's scenery is already bringing people to the county. The next step is to help them look beyond that scenery — and discover the history, culture and ecological significance that give the landscape its deeper meaning.
Written by Huang Yueliang, 20, a sophomore majoring in biomedical engineering at Tanwei College, Tsinghua University.
