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With the Chinese Communist Party celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, “red tourism,” which visits places of historical and cultural importance to the party, has become more popular in the country than ever before.

Places like Nanhu Lake in Zhejiang, east China, where the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held on a boat in 1921, and Mao Zedong’s birthplace Shaoshan have seen high visitor numbers lately. Indeed, the “red tourism” brings enormous income, which has been China’s economic boom since pandemic.

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But why is “red tourism” so important in China and how does it help companies grow? And why does it have a fair share of naysayers around the world who feel that it has some dark secrets? We explain.

What is China’s “red tourism”?

In China, “red tourism” refers to visiting places that have a modern revolutionary heritage. The aim of the project, which was launched in 2004, is to promote places with historical and cultural significance for the history of the ruling Communist Party, while at the same time providing impetus for tourism and the local economy.

“Red Tourism” tries to raise awareness of the history of the Chinese Communist Party from its inception. At the center of the project are historical events such as the Long March, the military withdrawal of the Red Army to avoid persecution by the Kuomintang in 1934, and the seizure of power by Mao Zedong.

The country’s red sites now form the core of a booming tourism industry that seeks to promote the party’s legacy. “Red Tourism” commemorates the sacrifices made by the leaders of the Communist Party for the creation of a modern China. In doing so, she tries to anchor the party in people’s minds by strengthening ideology through history and tourism.

Since coming to power, Chinese President Xi Jinping has aggressively promoted “red tourism”. Xi, who believes the project can offer people a “spiritual red baptism,” said in 2016: “Only when people experience the hardships of the revolutionary era can people really receive education.”

The party’s official magazine recently quoted Xi as calling for members to “use red resources wisely, inherit red genes and pass the red land down from generation to generation.”

What are some of the famous landmarks that fall under “red tourism”?

Some of the most famous places covered by “red tourism” are Yan’an, Mao Zedong’s revolutionary base, where the Red Army arrived after the Long March; Shaoshan, the birthplace of Mao; Jinggangshan, where Chinese Communist Party leaders established their first rural base for the revolution in 1927; Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi Province, which saw a major uprising in 1927 led by Zhou Enlai and He Long (China’s commander in chief); Mount Jinggang in Jiangxi Province, where the Chinese Communist Party began the revolution in October 1927; and Zunyi in ethnic minority Guizhou Province.

Jiangxi and Guizhou provinces, the sites of Mao’s early fighting and his escape from Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist forces in the Long March, are also big tourist draws.

The list of these sites is really endless. Just Yan’an has 140 red sites including Wangjiaping Revolution Museum and Mount Fenghuang, the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee site, Baota Hill, and Yangjia Ling Revolution site.

In Mao’s hometown of Shaoshan, you can visit his residence, his bronze statues and relics, and read his poems on stone tablets.

Tourism also includes colorful events – visitors routinely wear revolutionary clothing when visiting former communist leaders’ residences and exhibition halls, party members ritually chant entrance oaths, and there are also lectures for children about the communist party’s proud history in the country.

In places like Jinggangshan, you can pose for photos in a form of the People’s Liberation Army.

Many of the red sites have museums and exhibitions on the history of the Chinese Communist Party. In 2016, the Zunyi Museum launched a traveling exhibition that visited colleges and universities and trained over 100 students to spread awareness of communist history.

The tourism packages often offer visits to cultural parks where performances and theatrical performances take place about the important battles and events that played a key role in the growth of the communist party. In these cultural parks, tourists can also take part in role-playing projects on simulated battlefields that re-enact the wars in which the Red Army participated.

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Why is “red tourism” so popular and how has it helped the economy?

The tourist attractions are a big draw for the young Chinese population who love to travel and learn more about the history of the country. In addition, the strategy of promoting tourism products while using new technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality has very successfully attracted the youth.

40 percent of tourists are between 21 and 30 years old. A recent report by Alibaba’s Fliggy found that bookings for tours by people born in the 2000s have increased 630 percent lately compared to the previous year.

The government has invested heavily in “red tourism” over the years – the project budgeted 2.64 billion yuan ($ 370 million) between 2016 and 2020. And the big investments are starting to pay off.

According to government statistics, trips to red sites accounted for 10% of domestic tourism spending in the first half of 2018.

Tourism has grown exponentially in recent years – in Yan’an, for example, the number of visitors rose from 40.25 million in 2016 to 73.08 million in 2019.

“Red Tourism” sites across China had more than 1.4 billion visits in 2019. The increase in visitor frequency means skyrocketing revenue – according to a revelation by the Chinese government, the 2019 tourist visits generated more than 400 billion yuan (US $ 62.2 billion) in revenue at a press conference.

“Red Tourism” has also contributed to the robust recovery of the tourism market in China after the pandemic.

In 2020 there were more than 100 million “red tourists” who contributed 11% of domestic travel, CNN quoted Mimi Li, an associate professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University and an expert on Chinese tourism policy.

Liu Qi, secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Provincial Committee in Jiangxi, recently told a press conference in Beijing that the number of tourists visiting Jiangxi’s “red tourism” attractions has increased by 300 percent annually over the past few years on May Day. A recent report by the online travel booking platform Ctrip and Xinhua Finance said online searches for “red tourism” during the May 1st holidays increased seven-fold from the previous month. In addition, tourist bookings on Ctrip rose 375 percent compared to the same period last year.

Aside from growing revenue for government agencies and private tourism companies, “red tourism” is very popular as it supports a variety of ancillary businesses, from antique shops selling communist memorabilia to shopping malls, restaurants, and hotels.

The project has spawned an entire ecosystem of companies that form the core of the country’s booming economy. For example, Yan’an, once considered the economic backbone of China, now boasts an airport, new hotels, and even an upcoming Starbucks outlet.

Why does “red tourism” have its fair share of critics?

Many critics say that “red tourism”, which aims to educate people about the country’s past, often tells one-sided stories. It can tend to gloss over the mistakes and misdeeds of the country’s communist leaders, selling a version of history that suits the interests of the party. Many have indicated that not only promoting the spirit of research and academic scholarship in history, but also ideological indoctrination is the focus of this project.

For example, the Museum of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in Beijing highlights the victims of the Communist Party during the Sino-Japanese War in the 1930s and 1940s. She tries to argue that the then fledgling party was the “mainstay” that led the country to victory. The museum’s official page states that the Kuomintang, which was the country’s ruling party from 1928 to 1949, did not offer enough resistance to the Japanese invasion – a claim that has been denied by researchers outside of China.

“The most effective part of (‘red tourism’) is that not everything is fake. The travel pages are half-real-half-fake. The main purpose is to make people believe that ‘without the Communist Party, this country is over,’ ”said Zhang Yu, the Sweden-based general secretary of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, in a recent interview with the Voice of America .

In the literature of the Chinese Communist Party and in state media, the former revolutionary bases are considered “holy places”. Visits to these places are often seen by the administration as an opportunity to anchor the party’s beliefs in people’s minds and get them to reaffirm their communist beliefs.

As Xi repeated at a party meeting in October 2018, Mao’s decree: “East, west, south, north and center – the party leads everything”.