The Longmen Grottoes wows visitors by its high-tech innovations

This year, the famous Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang city are reported to have attracted an all-time record high of 203,500 visits during the just ended Spring Festival season. 

This huge success could be attributed to 7 new activities that were introduced to the site earlier in the year, aiming to enhance the freshness and excitement for visitors. The activities included, voting for the most beautiful family photo, connecting with Buddha who encompasses Yuanfen (Serendipity or fateful coincidence) through face pairing. Here, visitors can scan their faces in front of a machine to pair themselves with the Buddha who is believed to have the most Yuanfen (affinity) with them. Other activities comprised of red envelope returns from Wechat payments, walking through a-hundred-meter blessings road, the Luoyang Dongshan gourmet festival, peonies setting in Fengxian temple and guided tours in Hanfu (the traditional Han dynasty clothing tour).

Luoyang municipal government hopes by initiating these interactions it can close the gap between the past and modern-day for visitors through these 1500-year-old ancient royal grottoes. Many tourists interviewed on site said the Longmen Grottoes have left a vivid memory in their minds thanks to the government's efforts of fully tapping into the internet cloud platform, getting to know visitors' travel inclinations, installing Wi-Fi access within the site, plus launching an app to access parking info.