This year's Dragon Boat Festival holiday in East China's Fujian province effortlessly merged intangible cultural heritage (ICH) with modern cultural tourism, in an affair featuring over 760 diverse cultural and tourism events that were staged throughout the region.

ICH activation

Fujian, renowned for its rich ICH, is proudly home to 144 national-level ICH items, including traditional customs like Putian's dragon boat crafting and Minnan-style Jiandui treats. At Fuzhou's Drum Mountain Scenic Area, the fascinating "Stone Carving Rubbing" activity was a total highlight during the recent festival. Led by experts, visitors reproduced ancient Song Dynasty (960-1279) "Shou (longevity)" character engravings using brushes and rubbing sheets, offering hands-on experience in heritage preservation.

Diverse settings through folk customs clusters

The province's cultural and tourism initiatives, centered on folk customs, established varied special experiential clusters including ancient villages, urban settings, coastal regions and mountain areas clusters. These catered to a wide range of visitor interests and tastes.

In Taxia village, Nanjing county, Zhangzhou, the Earth Building Dragon Boat Festival Ritual attracted a particularly large audience.

The national ICH representative demonstrated Hakka Earth Building Construction Techniques, allowing visitors to have a go at making mini earth buildings by filling molds with clay, lime and bamboo.

The event led to sell-out occupancies at earth building homestays and generated booming sales of homemade delights like mugwort sachets and Hakka rice dumplings.

Mountain-sea interaction: activating a comprehensive consumption chain

Leveraging its multidimensional ecosystem of mountains, seas, rivers and fields, Fujian crafted a closed-loop of "folk experience + eco-tourism + culinary consumption". By blending its tea culture with the Dragon Boat Festival, initiatives like the "Tea zongzi DIY + Tea mountains hiking + Tea-making experience" package were introduced during the break, boosting sales of tea-related products and supporting local tea farmers, according to the head of the Wuyishan Tea Tourism Group.

In Xiapu county, Ningde, the mudflat dragon boat fun race emerged as a great new highlight. Local fishermen transformed traditional their fishing boats into dragon boats, prompting visitors to paddle competitively on the mudflats.

Post-race, the participants joined in activities like clam digging and shell collecting, followed by savoring a dragon boat feast at seaside stalls, turning local seaside folk customs into memorable experiences.