Heritage provides blueprint for future

"The inscription of the Beijing Central Axis on the UNESCO World Heritage List has had a significant impact, increasing public interest in our work and inspiring us to create new cultural scenarios. We've developed a consolidated showcase of the Beijing Central Axis-themed cultural and creative products, intangible cultural heritage elements and experiential cultural activities," Chen says.

The post office features a range of cultural merchandise themed on the Beijing Central Axis and Beijing culture. One of the best-selling products is the "Beijing Central Axis passport", a booklet that contains illustrations of the heritage site's 15 components, adopting anti-counterfeiting measures. Visitors to the post office can collect seal stamps in the booklet.

"When The Guan opened, it mainly attracted nearby residents, passing tourists and ancient architecture enthusiasts. After the inscription of the Beijing Central Axis, a lot of young people saw posts online and came to check it out, and tourists from home and abroad surged. The visitor numbers have doubled," she adds.

In response to the national call for "exploring effective mechanisms for the integration of culture and technology", authorities of the Dongcheng district have been leveraging its rich resources in recent years, promoting the high-quality development of the cultural industry and fostering new quality productive forces to boost the cultural market.

These approaches feature the combination of culture with other fields, such as technology, finance and consumption, empowering cultural and economic development through the revitalization of historical buildings, the leading examples of cultural enterprises and the upgrading of cultural industry parks.

Poly Culture Group, with its Beijing Poly Theatre and Poly Art Museum, also based in the district, has been exploring effective new methods of culture dissemination, cultural asset management and digitalization.

Its theaters have introduced a "smart theater" service platform that incorporates ticketing and big data analysis. For cultural artifact preservation and display purposes, the corporation developed a digital display cabinet that allows user interaction and naked-eye 3D technology for presenting key artifacts.