Smart travel makes tourists more convenient

Luoyang was listed as one of the top ten cities for smart travel

As the oldest capital city in China, Luoyang has served as the political center for more dynasties than other ancient capitals across the country. In the recently-held the fourth annual conference of Chinese tourism industry, Luoyang was listed as one of the top ten cities for smart travel. The integration of smart travel into the city’s ancient culture has made old capital more attractive.

Luoyang was chosen as one of China’s first experimental smart travel cities by China’s National Tourism Administration in 2012. Since then, the city has been implementing the project that centered on “one core, one basis, four platforms and eight commercial activities”. The core here is to build up a comprehensive tourism database and the “basis” refers to infrastructure construction for smart travel. The four platforms include public service, comprehensive management, electronic commerce and marketing. The eight commercial activities cover scenic spots, accommodation, travel agencies, villages, shopping and so on.

It is learned that there are altogether 75 projects included in Luoyang smart travel and some major ones have been finished, for example, integrated data center, Luoyang travel APP, a terminal for query and reservation, a management system for travel groups, and a monitoring system for tourist volume.

Standing in front of the gate of the Longmen Grottoes, tourists could see an LED screen with scrolling texts showing information about the local humidity and air quality. An official from Longmen Grottoes Management Board says that tourists can receive real time information about the number of tourists, weather as well as introduction of scenic spots by following the WeChat account of Longmen Grottoes. In addition, an intelligent management system has been introduced to the parking lot which provides real time information on an LED screen to help tourists get to their parking space easily.

Data shows that during the period of Peony Festival in 2014, 6.5 million invitations were sent to non-local tourists and met with favorable reception. Xue Guofang, a related official, says “the next step is to standardize the invitation procedure so that tourists can have a better journey in Luoyang”.

According to Wei Lifeng, the director of travel development committee of Luoyang, invitations have been sent to non-local tourists in holiday days through the three major telecommunication operators, China Telecome, China Mobile and China Unicom. The invitations include greetings, consulting and complaint phone number, download link for official APP. Through the content of the invitation message, tourists can not only feel the enthusiasm of Luoyang, but also get useful travel information about he city.