China News Service, Hezhou, November 9th (Zhang Guangquan, Bei Jiahang, Zhang Jinlian) When walking into Hezhou, the vivid early winter scenes of the steaming white steam in the mountains, the long breath in the forest, and the words "so comfortable" with a Cantonese accent by the pool constitute the most intuitive footnote of "Longevity Hezhou·Health Resort".
From November 6th to 8th, the 2026 Guangxi Cultural Tourism Development Conference was held in Hezhou, Guangxi. Representatives attending the conference visited Xixi Forest Hot Spring Resort, Gupo Mountain and other places to experience first-hand Hezhou’s poetic landscapes, customs and beautiful scenery.
In recent years, Hezhou City has focused on building a health and longevity resort in accordance with the overall layout of "one place, three corridors and five districts", focusing on building three corridors of health and wellness forest, ancient charm and humanities, and ecological tea fragrance. Among them, the Healthy Forest Corridor connects "mountains, forests, springs and valleys" into a chain, allowing hot springs to grow in the forest and letting the forest hold up the hot springs, promoting tourists to transform from "viewing the scenery" to "nurturing the body and mind".
A pool of real spring: 86.5℃ of mountain confidence
The first step in forest health care is to put "bathing in the hot spring" back into nature. When the car entered Nanxiang Town in Babu District, fog began to form in the bamboo sea, and the fresh air of vegetation and water vapor hit our faces.
The 128 pools in Xixi Forest Hot Spring Resort are distributed layer by layer along the valley from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain. The pools are basically embedded in the native landforms: a small pool emerges from the cracks in the rocks, and a shallow beach lies under the shade of the trees. When people soak in the water, the tops of fir trees can be seen above their heads. The surrounding forest coverage rate reaches 96%, and the peak value of negative oxygen ions is 120,000 per cubic centimeter. Forest oxygen therapy and hot spring wellness are integrated here - when people soak in the spring, they inhale the air in the forest.
The outlet water temperature of the spring is 86.5°C, and the daily water output exceeds 5,000 cubic meters. It contains more than 20 trace elements such as radon, fluorine, radium, metasilicic acid, etc. It is a treasure in hot springs and an excellent choice for health and vacation.
In 2025, the tourist flow of Xixi Forest Hot Spring Resort scenic area will reach 1.2 million, with tourists from the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area accounting for more than 80%.
In recent years, Hezhou has made full use of its advantages in location, transportation, ecology, and geothermal resources. Relying on the city's 11 hot spring cultural tourism resources, it has integrated hot spring health care with forest ecology, ethnic customs, cultural leisure, and promoted the extension of hot springs from single bathing to health resorts and forest healing, forming a "forest oxygen therapy + hot spring health care" model, allowing the "warm economy" to continue to release heat among the mountains and rivers.
A sea of forests: the slow-growing time of seniors
In the Gupo Mountain Scenic Area, the forest coverage rate reaches 99.75%, the average annual temperature is 18.2°C, the peak number of negative oxygen ions is 150,000 per cubic centimeter, and more than 60 waterfalls pour down from the dense forest. With its high-quality landscape ecology and high negative oxygen ion environment, Gupo Mountain Tourism Resort was selected into the first batch of "Yangtze River Delta Residence and Health Care Bases" and became an important window for Hezhou to display its image of longevity and health care to the outside world.
"Most of the Hong Kong tourists we receive through travel agencies are from the silver-haired generation, who like leisure, vacation, health care, and travel. What they pursue is a quiet journey." Wang Yongfei, managing director of China United International Tourism Co., Ltd., said, "We want to be a good cultural and tourism bridge between Hong Kong and Hezhou. Next, we will increase publicity in the Hong Kong market to promote Hezhou, a place of health and wellness, to Hong Kong and international tourists."
Forest health care focuses on the word "nurture". Based on high-quality ecological resources, Hezhou promotes the upgrading of landscape tourism to an immersive health and wellness experience: core scenic spots such as Gupo Mountain Tourist Resort and Xixi Forest Hot Spring Resort have accelerated the quality and expansion of their facilities, and a number of health and wellness trails and other facilities have been renovated, expanded and upgraded.
A corridor: turning "green content" into "gold content"
A pool of springs and a forest will eventually be connected to form an industrial belt.
Hezhou's forest coverage rate reaches 70.7%. It has two national forest parks, Gupo Mountain and Dagui Mountain. It has been rated as the World's Longevity City, China's Hot Spring City and a national-level pilot construction city for forest health care. In recent years, Hezhou has listed forest health care as a key development industry, promoted the transformation of ecological resources into a health care value system, and coordinated and promoted the organic integration of forest health care with cultural tourism, hot springs, traditional Chinese medicine, sports and other industries to build a "forest health care +" industrial pattern and lengthen the entire industry chain from sightseeing to vacation, from recuperation to residence.
Combining regional resources and folk customs, Hezhou has also developed special service products such as forest therapy, hot spring therapy, medicinal diet experience, and special physical therapy. It has launched forest bathing, forest yoga, dietary therapy and other health care methods. It has broken down "health" into experiential and optional products to meet the needs of different customer groups, so that forest health care is no longer a superficial consumption of "come and soak once", but a lifestyle that can be returned repeatedly and stayed for a long time.
From resources to products, from products to industries, “green content” is becoming a real “gold content”. Hezhou is gradually becoming a forest health and wellness tourism destination that attracts and retains tourists. (over)
