DgcityHunan used the opening of its annual international culture and tourism festival to pitch a much larger version of one of China’s most famous landscapes, unveiling multi-day inbound itineraries that stretch well beyond the sandstone pillars of Zhangjiajie itself.
The 2026 Hunan International Culture and Tourism Festival opened on November 6 in Furong Town, a cliffside settlement in the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture known for its waterfall and restored wooden stilt houses. The choice of venue was deliberate: the festival is the region’s argument that visitors should treat the greater Zhangjiajie area, not just its national forest park, as a single destination.
Four new inbound routes were released at the opening, each running roughly a week and aimed at overseas travelers booking through international platforms including Trip.com’s global site. One frames the region as a retreat of forest air and mountain stays; another leans on the Avatar landscape with a tour of the peak forests; a third builds a nocturnal itinerary of starlit scenery and evening entertainment; the fourth is organized around Hunan’s famously fiery cuisine. Together they link Zhangjiajie with Xiangxi, Huaihua, Shaoyang and Changde, threading karst peaks, ethnic-minority culture, historic towns and forest wellness into single trips.
The deals signed alongside the launch suggest the plans have commercial backing. Hunan’s culture and tourism authority signed framework agreements with counterparts in Chongqing, Sichuan and Guangxi to build integrated inbound loops across provincial borders, while Trip.com Group struck passenger-supply agreements with a roster of major attractions including Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, Tianmen Mountain, Langshan, Furong Town, the Aizhai scenic area, Fenghuang Old Town and Taohuayuan. Local operators also signed cooperation deals with travel companies in Russia, France, Kazakhstan, Egypt and Austria.
A development alliance for the greater Zhangjiajie tourism region was launched at the ceremony, an attempt to coordinate ticketing, transport and marketing among places that once competed for the same visitors. During the festival, overseas buyers were taken on inspection trips through the forest park, Fenghuang’s riverside old town, Longjin Wind and Rain Bridge, Langshan and Taohuayuan.
For foreign travelers, the shift matters in practical terms. Zhangjiajie has long demanded complicated logistics, with long transfers between the pillars, nearby towns and ethnic villages. Week-long curated routes, packaged for international booking rather than for domestic tour groups, make the region approachable as a standalone holiday rather than an ambitious add-on to a Beijing-Shanghai itinerary.
