Building Luoyang into a City of LARP of China
On October 12, Luoyang held a press conference for the goal of building itself a destination of immersive cultural tourism in China and accelerating the development of the Live Action Role Playing (LARP) industry also known as "script murder", to seize opportunities in the promising cultural tourism industry, based on the industry's new characteristics and targeted at young consumers. At the press conference, the Implementation Opinions on Promoting the Development of Immersive Cultural Tourism Industry in Luoyang and the Plans for Accelerating the Development of LARP Industry in Luoyang were released, proposing to build Luoyang into a city of LARP of China and a popular destination of immersive cultural tourism in China by the end of 2025.
Luoyang has a unique advantage to build itself into a destination of immersive cultural tourism in China by seizing opportunities in the emerging LARP industry. From the perspective of cultural heritage, Luoyang is one of the sources of Chinese civilization, one of the birthplaces of the Chinese nation, and one of the cradles of Chinese culture. The magnificent history of Luoyang has left rich cultural heritage, providing the city with a variety of resources for the immersive cultural tourism industry in terms of content creation. From the perspective of tourism resources, Luoyang has 63 national A-level tourist attractions, offering diversified choices for developing a destination of immersive cultural tourism in China. From the perspective of potential in development, efforts made in the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin and the accelerated integration process of the City Cluster in Central Plains (the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River) have offered good opportunities for Luoyang. Luoyang's transportation network, known for its convenient, far-reaching, three-dimensional and highly efficient features, has contributed to the forming of different groups of target tourists and consumers for the city's comprehensive development of cultural tourism.
In recent years, Luoyang has been focusing on the strategy of developing cultural tourism with cultural innovation as the pillar, seizing the promising future of immersive cultural tourism, taking advantage of its rich cultural heritage sites and items, taking innovation-oriented measures, and developing new formats of the city's cultural tourism industry. Popular scenic areas and spots in Luoyang such as Sui-Tang Luoyang City National Archaeological Site Park, Laojun Mountain and Luoyi Ancient Town have been continuously improved in terms of providing immersive experiences for tourists. At the same time, several projects such as the "Supreme Dragon Gate", "Knowing Laojun Mountain" and Fantasy Tang Pavilion (a venue for immersive experience) have attracted a large number of tourists.
Venues for script murder, immersive role-playing experiences, digital immersive experience centers... more and more netizens are getting interested in these popular activities incorporating traditional culture and realizing the integration of ancient and modern elements in Luoyang, particularly the large performance shows like "On Stage! Luoyang" and "The Wind in Luoyang", which have become popular cultural tourism IP products of Luoyang's immersive cultural tourism and promoted Luoyang as one of the top destinations of cultural tourism in China. Netizens have expressed their expectation of the cultural tourism experiences in Luoyang, looking forward to visiting this ancient yet energetic city in the future.
