Interactive tech transforms visitor experience at Chinese museums

Various Chinese museums have adopted innovative technologies and rolled out interactive programs to engage visitors ahead of the International Museum Day which falls on Sunday, blending cutting-edge digital tools with traditional cultural experiences.

In northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, the Xixia Imperial Tombs Museum has introduced augmented reality (AR) experiences and a crime-solving role-play game set in historical scenarios.

Located in the area of the royal mausoleums of the emperors in the Western Xia Dynasty (1038-1227), the museum features many unearthed funerary objects and the remaining cultural relics such as inscriptions, stone statues and building components.

And now with a newly-installed transparent touchscreen, visitors get to explore the details of cultural relics in 720-degree examination powered by AR, while image recognition technology delivers instant exhibit details via WeChat mini-programs.

At the Bada Shanren Memorial Museum in Nanchang, capital city of east China's Jiangxi Province, visitors are trying their hands at traditional Chinese rubbing techniques - carefully pressing ink onto rice paper over stone carvings to recreate the distinctive brushstrokes of 17th-century painter Zhu Da.

The museum's concurrent painting workshops have proven particularly popular with younger visitors.

"I feel so accomplished after creating this, and it really shows the charm of Chinese ink painting," said Li Wanqi, a primary school student.

In China's southern province of Hainan, China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea sees an influx of visitors this week to its "Deep Blue Treasures" exhibition.

The special event features real-time updates from the ongoing excavation of two 16th-century merchant shipwrecks discovered in 2022 at a depth of 1,500 meters. For the first time, the museum has opened a visible cultural relics conservation lab where visitors can observe archaeologists restoring porcelain recovered from the sites.

Interactive tech transforms visitor experience at Chinese museums

China's trade in services maintained a positive trend in the first quarter of 2026, with the total trade achieving a year-on-year increase of 2.3 percent, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce on Friday.

In the first quarter of 2026, China's total service trade volume reached over 1.8 trillion yuan (about 267.9 billion U.S. dollars). Exports of services totaled 704.52 billion yuan, up 11.2 percent, while services imports totaled 1.1 trillion yuan, down 2.6 percent.

China's trade in services during the period mainly exhibited two characteristics, said the ministry.

First, the exports of knowledge-intensive services maintained rapid growth.

Trade in knowledge-intensive services expanded by 1.6 percent year on year to 793.71 billion yuan in the first quarter, accounting for 43.5 percent of total service trade.

Exports of knowledge-intensive services reached 384.26 billion yuan, up 6.1 percent year on year. Personal cultural and entertainment services, as well as financial services, recorded particularly sharp export gains of 25.6 percent and 16.1 percent, respectively. Imports of knowledge-intensive services totaled 409.45 billion yuan, down 2.3 percent year on year.

Second, travel service exports and transport services imports grew rapidly.

In the first quarter, travel service exports jumped 32.3 percent year on year to 105.35 billion yuan in the reporting period, the highest growth among all service export sectors.

Meanwhile, imports of transport services totaled 230.2 billion yuan in the first three months, an increase of 22.8 percent, marking the fastest pace in the top five service import categories by scale.

Inbound tourism has been booming in recent years after China introduced expanded visa-free policies and conveniences such as instant tax refunding for departing visitors.

China's trade in services maintains positive growth in Q1