Lebainian Health Town, located in Duntou town in Hai'an, is the largest tourism project developed in Hai'an in recent years. Its aim is to become a premier cultural and tourism facility in the Yangtze River Delta, serving the health and wellness sector. [Photo/ntfabu.com]

In recent years, Hai'an – a county-level city administered by Nantong in East China's Jiangsu province – has continued to make great efforts to boost the wide-ranging integration of its culture and tourism sectors, while sustaining their development momentum.

In 2021, Hai'an has had 11 new projects recognized by Nantong as key cultural projects, ranking it second in the latter metropolis, with investment totaling 6.78 billion yuan ($1.06 billion).

Combining its local characteristics and competitive industries, Hai'an is speeding up its introduction of a raft of high-quality cultural and service industry projects – to establish a cultural industry development system with a full range of categories.

At the start of the year, Hai'an held the 11th China Hai'an Globefish Festival – an event which celebrates the city's connection to the fish, used in various popular culinary dishes. The city is a major globefish production area in China.

The city also organized for 40 travel agencies from the Yangtze River Delta region to come and have a closer look at its celebrated globefish sector – and expanded the influence of its tourism brand as "the home of globefish".

In addition, it also staged a raft of other cultural and tourism events, such as the 523 culture and art festival.

Established in 2009, the 523 Cultural Industrial Park is a city precinct that integrates culture, tourism and the research and development of related products, as well as manufacturing, promotions and sales. It is a national cultural industry demonstration base and is widely regarded as being a vital cultural industry cluster area in the YRD region.

Hai'an is also allocating 10 million yuan every year, as a fund to support the development of the city's culture and tourism industries.