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The Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China (中华人民共和国文化和旅游部) commonly used short form is Ministry of Culture and Tourism (文化和旅游部) and the very common abbreviation is Culture-Tourism Department (文旅部). MCT acts as a national policy and coordination body for digital-human adoption across culture-and-tourism rather than as the operator of a ministry-branded digital human. It does so by co-issuing a Smart Tourism Innovation and Development Action Plan (智慧旅游创新发展行动计划) that promotes use of new technologies and equipment in cultural and tourism venues, with digital humans included as one element within smart-tourism solution sets, and by providing official guidance or endorsement for major digital culture-and-tourism events where provincial departments and partner organizations launch culture-and-tourism virtual humans for branding, interpretation, and visitor engagement. No ministry-owned flagship digital-human program, ministry-run deployment, procurement, or named ministry-operated digital human is attributed to the ministry itself; implementations occur through provinces, cities, venues, and vendors within the broader domain the ministry oversees.
The Smart Tourism Innovation and Development Action Plan is used as a national policy anchor for accelerating culture-and-tourism digitization characterized by digitalization, networking, and intelligent services, and it is repeatedly linked to practical deployments that use digital humans and adjacent AI tools in visitor-facing and marketing workflows. The described applications cluster around intelligent guiding and interpretation, with digital-human guides in scenic areas, museums, and heritage venues providing route planning, information lookup, and on-site narration, including deployments that cover multiple explanation points within a single destination; interactive cultural storytelling, with historical-figure or IP-style virtual digital humans that can converse with visitors and deliver scripted or knowledge-base explanations, including the Tengwang Pavilion virtual digital human “Wang Bo” used for interactive engagement; and demonstration-and-rollout mechanisms designed to promote model replication and supply–demand matchmaking, explicitly treating digital-human guide and tour services as representative intelligent offerings. The same policy framing also connects digital humans to commercialization and operational tooling, including digital-human livestreaming, AIGC-enabled content production, marketing traffic guidance, and marketing data monitoring, and to integrated “metaverse + culture-and-tourism” scenario building that combines digital humans with immersive interaction technologies such as AR/VR, cave-style spaces, naked-eye 3D, cloud rendering, and graphics engines; digital-human and immersive “metaverse + digital human” solutions are described as selectable, promotable solution packages within this implementation framework.
Leading Officials for the Smart Tourism Action Plan:
Sun Yeli (孙业礼): Minister and Party Group Secretary of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. As the ministry’s chief, Sun sets overall cultural‑tourism policy; he and his deputies oversee initiatives like the Smart Tourism Action Plan.
Du Jiang (杜江): Vice Minister of Culture and Tourism. Du co‑chaired smart‑tourism conferences and represents the ministry in cross‑departmental digital culture projects.
Lu Yingchuan (卢映川): Vice Minister of Culture and Tourism. Lu is a senior ministry leader involved in tourism digitization (his title is “Deputy Minister” as of 2024).
Man Hongwei (满宏卫): Director of the MCT Resource Development Department (资源开发司). Man heads the department responsible for tourism resource development and smart tourism implementation. He is explicitly cited as promoting “smart tourism” in official commentary.
Wang Heyun (王鹤云): First-level Inspector, MCT Resource Development Department. As a senior official in that department, Wang has publicly introduced smart‑tourism projects and the Action Plan at ministry press briefings.
Zhang Yongxin (张永新): Director of the MCT General Office. Zhang’s office formally issued the Smart Tourism Action Plan notice on behalf of the ministry (co‑signing with other agencies).
2025
2025-07-18: The General Office of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and other departments were referenced as having released the Smart Tourism Innovation and Development Action Plan, with digital humans mentioned.
2025-04-12: The Ministry of Culture and Tourism and multiple departments were referenced as having jointly issued the Smart Tourism Innovation and Development Action Plan, with digital humans mentioned in the context of empowering smart tourism.
2025-03-26: The Ministry of Culture and Tourism organized work under the Smart Tourism Innovation and Development Action Plan and referenced digital-human solutions among the applied technologies.
2025-03-19: The General Office of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism was referenced as having jointly released the Smart Tourism Innovation and Development Action Plan with five departments in the prior May.
2025-02-06: The Ministry of Culture and Tourism carried out the 2024 national smart-tourism solution recommendation selection under the Smart Tourism Innovation and Development Action Plan, with two selected solutions including digital-human solutions.
2024
2024-10-20: The Ministry of Culture and Tourism and four other ministries were referenced as issuing the Smart Tourism Innovation and Development Action Plan, alongside integrating metaverse culture-tourism application scenarios including digital humans.
2024-07-02: The Ministry of Culture and Tourism and other departments were referenced as jointly issuing the Smart Tourism Innovation and Development Action Plan in May, alongside mention of strategic cooperation in digital-human livestreaming and other industry scenarios.
2024-05-27: The Ministry of Culture and Tourism website was referenced as reporting issuance of the Smart Tourism Innovation and Development Action Plan, including AI digital humans and interactive technologies such as Cave spaces and naked-eye 3D.
2024-05-13: The General Office of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and multiple departments jointly issued a notice to print and release the Smart Tourism Innovation and Development Action Plan.