Recently, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued the "15th Five-Year Plan for Culture and Tourism Development", which comprehensively deploys key tasks in eight aspects, including prospering artistic creation and production, strengthening cultural heritage protection and inheritance, improving cultural and tourism public services, vigorously developing the cultural and tourism industry, coordinating the cultivation and supervision of the cultural and tourism market, promoting science and technology to empower culture and tourism development, promoting cultural and tourism exchanges and cooperation, and promoting the coordinated development of regional urban and rural culture and tourism. To better build the cultural tourism industry into a happiness industry so that every ordinary person has the opportunity and ability to embrace "poetry and distance" is an important topic for the high-quality development of cultural tourism during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period.
The "prosperity of one industry" in cultural tourism drives the prosperity of "all industries". It is connected to economic development and people's livelihood and well-being, and involves many fields such as food, housing, transportation, tourism, shopping, and entertainment. In recent years, my country's tourism development has entered a fast lane, forming the world's largest domestic tourism market and becoming the largest source of tourists and a major destination for international tourism. Data show that during the 2026 Spring Festival holiday, there were 596 million domestic trips, with a total expenditure of 803.483 billion yuan. The number of tourists and expenditure hit a record high; during this year's May Day holiday, there were 325 million domestic trips across the country, a year-on-year increase of 3.6%; the total domestic travel expenditure was 185.492 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.9%. Tourism is gradually transforming from a leisure choice for a few people into people's daily life, and the "happiness industry" has an increasingly clear foundation for people's livelihood.
In July this year, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism released the "Fifteenth Five-Year Plan for Building a Tourism Power", which clarified that by 2030, "the people's sense of tourism gain and happiness will be significantly enhanced, the tourism public service system will continue to improve, the people's tourism satisfaction will continue to increase, domestic residents will travel 8.3 billion times, and the total domestic travel expenditure will reach 7.7 trillion yuan, and the inclusive nature of tourism will be further highlighted." The proposal of this goal has set a clear development scale for the "happiness industry" and also injected a clear focus on people's livelihood.
In recent years, our country has continued to make efforts to facilitate cultural tourism and benefit the people, launching a series of pragmatic measures. Railway tourism tickets have been expanded to 26 products, covering 242 stations across the country; all public libraries, cultural centers (stations), art galleries and more than 91% of museums across the country are open to the public free of charge; the tourism toilet revolution has been implemented in depth, with about 150,000 newly built, renovated and expanded toilets during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period... However, measured by a higher scale of "perceivable and accessible", there are still many areas worth exploring for the quality upgrading of the cultural tourism industry. There is still room for optimization in the pricing of connection transportation in some scenic spots to benefit the people. The aging-friendly services of online reservation channels need to continue to be refined and implemented. The supply of inclusive cultural tourism products that meet the needs of farmers can still be further expanded and improved in quality. From the price mechanism to service details, from urban layout to rural coverage, the existing obstacles and difficulties in this "happiness industry" are precisely the breakthrough points for the next step to improve quality and efficiency.
Making happiness "feelable" means that every tourist can have a real sense of gain, happiness and security during the trip. Tourists' sense of gain is hidden in details such as sincere service, transparent prices, and timely response. This requires empathizing with each other and treating tourists' "key little things" as "top priority." On the one hand, improving tourist satisfaction by improving service quality. Promote the construction of a team of "chief quality officers" and "benchmark waiters", consolidate the main responsibilities of corporate quality management, promote the "code" evaluation of tourism satisfaction, and use indicators such as tourist satisfaction and complaint handling efficiency as the basis for scenic spot rating, hotel review, and industry evaluation. On the other hand, industry supervision should be strengthened and there should be "zero tolerance" for behaviors such as cheating and extorting customers, forced shopping, etc. Carry out special rectification actions for tourism market order, improve the tourism complaint classification system and handling standards, and encourage local governments to implement systems such as advance compensation for travel-related complaints. Smooth complaint channels, reduce the cost of rights protection, and create a safe and secure consumption environment so that tourists dare to consume and are willing to consume.
"Accessibility" of happiness means that everyone who is willing to travel can go, enter and have a good time. The key to achieving this is to bridge the gap between "wanting to travel" and "being able to travel", so that everyone can enjoy the right to travel fairly. First, reduce travel costs. Promote the reduction of ticket prices in state-owned scenic spots, expand the scope of free openings, encourage localities to launch travel packages, annual passes and consumer coupons and other measures to benefit the people, and support local governments with conditions to cooperate in the issuance of cross-regional travel coupons and annual passes. Second, free up time and space. Implement a paid leave system for employees, encourage flexible off-peak leave, support qualified areas to promote spring and autumn holidays for primary and secondary schools, and promote the travel window from a few "deterministic holidays" to a balanced release throughout the year. Third, remove facilities and technical barriers. Retain manual windows and telephone reservation channels, strengthen the construction of age-friendly and barrier-free facilities, encourage cultural museums and scenic spots to be equipped with large-print guides, sign language explanations, etc., and effectively transform digital technology into warm and convenient tools.
The "happiness" of the "Happiness Industry" is not only in the mountains and rivers, but also in the footsteps of every ordinary person. Promote cultural tourism for all, so that the elderly can board long-distance trains and see vast mountains and rivers; rural children can enter museums and listen to the echoes of civilization... Every ordinary person can fairly enjoy the right to "poetry and distance", which is the warmest footnote to a powerful tourism country.
"Guangming Daily" (page 10, September 28, 2026)
