Tech Empowers Huaguo Mountain for a More Relaxing Summer Tour

From: Lianyungang Daily Updated: 2026-08-10 10:09

In the sweltering dog days of summer under a blazing sun, Huaguo Mountain Scenic Area has greeted its peak tourist flow. The area outside the mountain gate is packed with vehicles, and the tourist center is bustling with visitors — yet unlike the “frantic, sweat-soaked long waits” of previous years, today’s queues are marked by a new sense of ease and composure. This transformation is driven by a comprehensive smart tourism upgrade.

At the entrance of the Wusheng Parking Lot, a prominent electronic screen clearly displays green digits reading “Remaining Parking Spaces: 154”. Mr. Zhang, a self-driving tourist from Shandong Province, gently turns his steering wheel and smoothly pulls into an empty space following the green arrow guidance from the system. Visitors can even check real-time updates on remaining parking spots across all scenic area lots via the “Smart Tour Lianyungang” mini-program before arrival, to plan their routes in advance.

At 9 a.m., a large wave of tourists arrives at the scenic area, yet the queue at the Xianren Lake shuttle bus stop remains perfectly orderly. The scenic shuttle buses operate like scheduled trains, pulling out fully loaded with visitors every few dozen seconds. In the smart scenic area monitoring and command center, dozens of green dots move slowly along the winding mountain road on a massive LED screen — these are the real-time GPS coordinates of every operational shuttle bus. Dispatchers keep a close eye on the screen, tracking the density and movement speed of the dots around each stop. “Through the large display, we can view the real-time location and passenger load of every shuttle bus, make scientific and rational scheduling decisions, and deploy extra capacity in advance to minimize visitor waiting time,” a staff member from the Huaguo Mountain Tourist Center explained.

In recent years, Huaguo Mountain Scenic Area has continued to leverage technological empowerment to optimize and upgrade its smart tourism system. By deeply integrating AI large models with cultural and tourism services, the scenic area has built a “one-stop” tourism service system that digitizes the entire process from park entry, sightseeing, consumption to departure, drastically improving tour efficiency.

As the iconic landmark of Huaguo Mountain, the newly upgraded Water Curtain Cave has naturally become the top summer tourist hotspot. A crowd of visitors gathers around an electronic screen at the Xianren Lake shuttle stop, which not only scrolls through real-time updates on the current entry batch and remaining available reservations for Water Curtain Cave, but also thoughtfully displays the estimated ticket checking time for the next batch. This design allows visitors waiting at the mountain gate shuttle stop to grasp real-time information about the core attraction and arrange their itineraries at their own pace.

In addition, targeting the high physical exertion of mountain-type scenic areas, Huaguo Mountain has launched an exoskeleton rental service, which is very popular among young visitors and senior tourists. At the smart rental locker, several visitors are putting on lightweight power-assisted exoskeletons with the help of staff. The device uses sensors to detect the trend of human body movements, and actively provides leg assistance when climbing slopes, effectively reducing leg strain by around 30%.