Visiting intelligent production lines, purchasing products and related cultural and creative items… as an important form of industrial tourism, factory tours have opened the door between modern factories and cultural tourism trends. From the robotic arm workshop of NIO's "Lighthouse Factory" in Hefei, to the "Milk Universe" light and shadow space in Yili Modern Smart Health Valley, and the distinctive route connecting large aircraft, aerospace science popularization, and intelligent health manufacturing in Zhuhai Jinwan, industrial tourism in many parts of the country is breaking away from the traditional three-piece model of "corridor + exhibition board + guide," and creating a brand-new cultural tourism track based on digital intelligent manufacturing.

Scene reconstruction

Traditional industrial tourism often involves viewing production lines through glass and listening to explanations from display boards, resulting in limited visual appeal, a monotonous experience, and short stays. The production attributes of factories and the experiential aspects of tourism have consistently failed to create a genuine synergy. The key to breaking this deadlock lies in using digital technology to reconstruct the visitor experience itself.

This summer, a parent from Nanjing drove their child to NIO's "Lighthouse Factory" in Hefei specifically to participate in the "Little Engineer" activity. The precision operation of over 1,000 robotic arms in the workshop, the agile maneuvering of driverless cars, the flexible storage and retrieval of vehicles in the automated parking system resembling a claw machine, and the AI-driven automatic inspection of lights, wipers, and other components during quality control left a deep impression on the parents and children. NIO's Advanced Manufacturing Xinqiao No. 2 Factory was designed for open visits and experiences from the initial design stage. Visitors can experience multiple functional areas of the NIO House at the NIO Center, learn about the diverse charging, swapping, and upgradeable energy replenishment methods and intelligent energy management of NIO Power, NIO's all-scenario energy service system, and also tour the NIO factory's body shop and final assembly workshop, closely observing NIO's world-first "Magic Cube" vehicle storage and retrieval platform, the world's first large-scale application of AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle) intelligent assembly island, and other highly intelligent and automated advanced manufacturing production lines.

Within the Yili Grassland Dairy Culture Tourism Area, the Yili Modern Smart Health Valley deeply integrates digital manufacturing into industrial tourism. The "Dairy Universe" themed feature film in the five-dimensional cinema immerses viewers in flowing light and shadow; a hyper-bionic digital dynamic interactive cow model begins to "tell" the complete journey of a glass of milk from pasture to table. Han Fei, Vice President of Yili Group, explained that this 38-square-kilometer industrial new city connects 12 modern themed pavilions. Its core theme is not "how to put a few screens in the factory," but rather to translate the complex dairy processing procedures of the industrial park into language that consumers can understand, want to visit, and remember.

Zhuhai's industrial tourism has taken a unique approach of "real production + digital extension." The AG600 aircraft final assembly line of AVIC General Aircraft is currently the only special large aircraft production line in my country open to the public. Visitors can stand on the second-floor viewing platform and look down at the "large aircraft" as it is gradually assembled from parts. The "major national equipment" in books and news has become a real product that can be seen.

Located a 10-minute drive from the AG600 final assembly line, the Zhuhai Space Center features a 1:1 scale replica of the Tiangong space station, its T-shaped display module suspended high above the ground. Zheng Zhicheng, Planning and Promotion Manager of Zhuhai Aerospace Center Operation and Management Co., Ltd., explained that through scene recreations, interactive installations, and VR, AR, and MR technologies, visitors can personally control an aircraft in a C919 simulator, operate a Mars rover in the Mars exploration experience area, and experience lunar surface driving in the lunar exploration project.

Inside the fourth phase of By-Health's transparent factory, a 150-meter-long continuous intelligent production line operates at high speed. "What used to require at least 30 workers to coordinate now only needs a minimum of 4 employees," said guide Wang Tianci. Large screens next to the production line display real-time order progress, quality indicators, equipment status, and warehousing information, allowing visitors to intuitively see the "digital brain" behind the physical factory—digital production itself—which has become the most vivid exhibit.

Value Upgrade

The value of industrial tourism has long since transcended the simple act of "visiting factories." Instead, it has evolved from a mere tourist attraction to a value hub connecting businesses, consumers, and industries.

For businesses, an open smart factory is first and foremost the most credible platform for brand demonstration. When By-Health opened its transparent factory in 2012, the company faced consumer skepticism regarding the health food industry. More than a decade later, the factory has become a national AAAA-level tourist attraction and a national industrial tourism demonstration base. As of the end of June this year, it had received over 2.04 million visitors. Li Qianqian from Guangzhou, after visiting, said that after seeing the raw materials, production, and testing processes firsthand, "at least I know how it's produced." At Yili's Modern Smart Health Valley, visitors witness ultra-high-speed production lines processing 6,500 tons of fresh milk daily and intelligent production lines producing 60,000 tons of infant formula annually; the "visible production line" directly translates into "visible trust." "The annual economic value contribution exceeds 35 million yuan, and the cumulative online exposure is nearly 1 billion times. These figures show that smart factory tours have transformed from cost centers into value engines," said Han Fei.

Industrial tourism also serves as a public science education platform for the entire society. Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of NIO, explained that NIO's "Little Engineer" program has, to date, hosted nearly 10,000 primary and secondary school students, allowing them to observe intelligent production lines up close and experience firsthand the core strength of China's high-end intelligent manufacturing. Yili's "Inno Study Club" brand, a mobile learning platform, conducts over 3,000 activities annually, reaching over 140,000 people and achieving a tiered and categorized design of science education content across all educational levels. The Zhuhai Space Center has received over 1.16 million visitors, including approximately 40,000 young people from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and internationally, transforming industrial achievements into public education resources for the next generation.

More importantly, industrial tourism is upgrading from an "add-on cultural tourism project" for enterprises to an infrastructure that drives the overall progress of regional industries. In 2024, NIO's Hefei Advanced Manufacturing Base was awarded the title of Anhui Provincial Industrial Tourism Demonstration Base, becoming a new city name card and investment attraction window for Hefei, and directly showcasing the development level of China's high-end intelligent manufacturing to visitors from all over the country. Yili Modern Smart Health Valley continues to enhance Hohhot's "Dairy Capital" city brand, providing a benchmark model that can be observed and learned from for the entire dairy industry. Zhuhai Jinwan connects the AG600 production line and the Space Center, transforming the temporary popularity of the China Airshow into a year-round aerospace industry display window, making the city's industrial strength visible from "exhibition time" to "everyday visibility".

Ecological co-construction

Currently, industrial tourism driven by digital intelligent manufacturing is at the tipping point of large-scale explosive growth, and the industry is also facing the challenge of upgrading from "whether it exists" to "how good it is".

The policy front continues to send clear signals. In May of this year, seven departments, including the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, jointly issued the "Notice on Promoting Industrial Culture, Protecting Industrial Heritage, and Developing Industrial Tourism," which explicitly proposes to support the use of digital technologies and equipment such as BeiDou, artificial intelligence, ultra-high-definition video, virtual reality, and autonomous driving to create immersive and intelligent industrial tourism experiences.

According to Kan Xinglong, Dean of the School of Tourism and Public Management at Zhuhai University of Science and Technology, three hurdles need to be overcome to truly transform more factories into tourist destinations. The first hurdle is moving from "open production lines" to "designing tourist scenarios," translating professional production knowledge into stories that ordinary people can understand. The second hurdle is moving from individual attractions to industrial routes. This requires further strengthening the design of routes, transportation connections, study tours, and cultural tourism consumption links between different industrial scenarios. The third hurdle is safety and standardization. Production safety, trade secrets, clean environments, and personnel organization all dictate that industrial tourism cannot simply copy the model of ordinary scenic spots.

"Next, we plan to introduce more digital technologies, such as AI-guided tours and a metaverse space station, to continuously upgrade the experience," said Zheng Zhicheng. Tomson Biotech focuses on how to keep the transparent factory fresh and engaging. The "Transparent Factory 3.0" project has a total investment of approximately 420 million yuan and includes facilities such as a formulation building, extraction building, and elevated warehouse, as well as an aerial rail logistics system.

Currently, Yili Modern Smart Health Valley is making every effort to achieve its goal of becoming the first national 5A-level industrial tourism scenic spot. In terms of consumer experience, it continuously iterates immersive scenes and interactive content, ensuring new discoveries with each visit; in terms of brand communication, it uses industrial tourism as a window to continuously project quality trust and industry stories. "When factories are no longer just places of production, but become spaces for telling industry stories, conveying brand trust, and connecting public perception, the new narrative of Industrial Tourism 4.0 in the era of intelligent manufacturing has truly begun," said Han Fei.

(Source: Economic Daily reporters Liang Rui, Wu Hao, and Yu Jian)