After exploring every corner of their native city, Hu Sisi and her three regular travel companions wanted to experience something different during this year’s May Day holiday. So, they headed to a distillery.

During a tour of the Shazhou Youhuang Cultural Park in Zhangjiagang, in the eastern Jiangsu province, the group learned about the traditional techniques for making huangjiu, a type of Chinese rice wine traditionally served warm, and got to sample multiple varieties, as well as try huangjiu-infused milk tea, coffee, and yogurt. 

Stopping by the gift shop on the way out, they also picked up exclusive goodies including bottles of huangjiu aged in whisky casks as souvenirs for their fathers.

“Traveling while gaining knowledge is a whole new experience for me,” said Hu, a 29-year-old from Jiangsu’s garden city of Suzhou. “All the huangjiu-related products here are exclusive to the scenic area and unavailable online, which only heightened my desire to buy them.”

After first emerging as a concept in Europe around the mid-20th century, industrial tourism — which involves visiting factories, vineyards, and other sites of industrial heritage — began taking root in China in the late ’90s. Over the years, it has flourished into a lucrative sector, thanks to growing investment and government support.

The country now has more than 1,000 industrial tourism sites nationwide, ranging from century-old steel mills in the northeastern “Rust Belt” to gleaming, high-tech electric-vehicle plants in the south.

Some destinations even attract more visitors than traditional scenic spots, such as the Tsingtao Beer Museum in Qingdao, in the eastern Shandong province, which received more than 1.8 million visitors last year, a 12.5% increase compared with 2023.

Many cities and provinces have included industrial tourism as a key ingredient in their policies to boost the local tourism market. For example, Shanghai’s three-year tourism development plan, released in February, highlights the potential for converting abandoned factories into immersive, cultural attractions, helping local businesses through ticket sales and spin-offs while preserving the city’s industrial heritage.

Beijing was also drafting plans in March to integrate its tech hubs into tourism routes, such as with tours that pair cutting-edge robotics factories and driverless car laboratories with views of the ancient Great Wall.

Finding a niche

Jiang Zihan, a 23-year-old journalism student and social media content creator, sees industrial tourism as a way to acquire knowledge and disseminate culture. She’s recently been exploring such projects in Zhongshan, a city in the southern Guangdong province, including an almond cake factory and a soy sauce museum.

What struck her most were the stories behind the products, such as how Chubang soy sauce — a local specialty brand — is closely linked with the area’s dry climate and requires distinct production methods, taking 180 days to ferment.

“You not only visit but also experience the production process firsthand and can get a taste onsite,” she told Sixth Tone, adding that participating in industrial tourism has also enhanced her trust in the brands. “I would be more willing to purchase these products because this kind of experience is very close to life and has led to me gaining a deeper understanding and trust.”

Industrial tourism is also helping some companies raise awareness of products that are still relatively niche in the Chinese market.

In 2023, Milkground, a major dairy producer based in Shanghai, opened China’s first cheese-themed tourism base, the Jinshan Cheese Factory, with the aim to educate visitors through immersive experiences such as 3D animations of its production processes and multimedia flavor-pairing workshops.

The facility balances operational needs with visitor engagement — glass partitions allow observation of automated filling and packaging without compromising hygiene — while government-backed initiatives, such as its inclusion in the city’s official industrial tourism route, have further supported its growth.

However, Ma Chen, vice president of Milkground, acknowledged that the attraction is competing with many other benchmark projects. She said that the biggest challenge is attracting more consumers through higher quality and more differentiated services, so that they gain a better understanding of the company and its cheese.

Hands-on experience

Scaling in a market with a relatively niche audience is also an issue.

Since opening in 2012, the Transparent Factory operated by nutritional supplement manufacturer By-health in Zhuhai has welcomed more than 1.7 million visitors. In 2022, it was selected as Guangdong’s first national industrial tourism demonstration base.

The plant’s visitor center offers multimedia animations and virtual reality displays as well as more than 60 immersive experiences that aim to introduce nutritional health knowledge.

A representative of By-health told Sixth Tone that industrial tourism has transformed smart production lines into engaging experiences for visitors and is helping showcase the progress in China’s health industry.

“There’s an invisible wall between companies and consumers. When there is information asymmetry, consumers may have doubts about the company’s products, quality, brand, and service. Transparency is the best way to communicate,” the representative said. However, “compared with natural scenery, leisure vacations, and cultural-artistic landscapes, industrial tourism has stronger interest orientation but weaker tourism appeal.”

Fang, a 26-year-old Shanghai resident, has visited several of the city’s “hardcore” industrial sites such as Zhenhua Heavy Industries and the Jiangnan Shipyard, as well as lighter experiences such as the Zotter Chocolate Theater.

She is particularly interested in the intersection of industrial tourism and urban history, and highlighted the city’s northeastern Yangpu District for its “strong industrial legacy and many attractions created from revitalized old buildings that echo its distinct past and offer a richer understanding of the area.”

“Traditional cultural attractions can feel repetitive, but industrial tourism is fresh and distinctive,” she said. “It’s not just fun — it’s educational. You find out about history, and more. It’s a continuous learning journey.”

A 30-year-old finance professional surnamed Du, also from Shanghai, has been exploring BMW and Volvo factories, as well as robotics projects, in her spare time. She enjoys observing and participating in the production process, feeling that it provides an experience unlike any typical tourism project. “Seeing real manufacturing up close and trying simple operations yourself makes it truly memorable,” she said.

Beyond its niche appeal, Du finds industrial tourism’s core value in its futuristic edge. “Industrial spaces are grand. The installations and futuristic elements stand out, especially in robot or smart manufacturing zones. You get a powerful sense of cutting-edge technology,” she said, adding that she hopes more high-tech tours and interactive experiences will be rolled out nationwide.

As for journalism student Jiang, she’s now encouraging her friends to indulge more in industrial tourism. “Although this field is still relatively niche, it showcases the culture of my hometown well, and I hope more people can come to understand and experience it,” she said.

Additional reporting: Zhou Hanchi and Chen Zhenyang; editor: Hao Qibao.

(Header image: Children visit a Geely auto plant in Changxing County, Zhejiang province, Jan. 12, 2023. VCG)