A series of events titled "Splendid Xiaoxiang and the Belt and Road Initiative" won second place among the most influential brand activities in China's tourism industry.

Culture and tourism have also become new drivers of rural vitalization.

Hunan has set up a new model of "intangible cultural heritage plus rural vitalization" and built 13 high-quality tourism routes. It has driven the development of 689 villages and formed 55 typical cases of rural vitalization.

The province's direct and indirect poverty reduction through tourism has benefited more than 1 million people, accounting for about 20 percent of the province's low-income population based on numbers from 2015.

Feng Zhiwei and Zhu Youfang contributed to this story.