Red tourism is going global as more and more Chinese tourists are drawn to visiting revolutionary attractions in countries like Russia, which share a communist past with China, or countries where famous revolutionaries have lived. As these countries tap into China's red tourism market, China is also hoping to attract more international tourists to its red sites so as too better tell China's story to the world.
Highgate Cemetery in North London recently welcomed 20 Chinese visitors.
They stood in a row facing a grave, bowed three times, and then paid silent tribute to their intellectual hero - Karl Marx.
This was the highlight of a packaged tour entitled "Walking in Marx's footsteps in Britain," organized by a Beijing-based company that specializes in red tourism abroad. For the tourists visiting Marx's grave, that day was especially meaningful because it was the 133rd anniversary of the German philosopher's death.
After the silent tribute, two leftist scholars that were part of the group, Sima Nan and Li Yan, made speeches summarizing the life of Marx and his influence on China. They ended the ceremony by singing The Internationale, a socialist anthem.
The nine-day tour also stopped at Marx's former residence on Dean Street where he lived from 1851 to 1856, the British Museum where he did his research and writing, the Marx Memorial Library and the apartment at 41 Maitland Park Road, Hampstead where Marx spent his last years.
"Britain is a capitalist country with a long history and rich culture… For us tourists who believe in Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, however, we visit here mainly because it's the place where Capital was written, and because Marx spent his last years here and we want to hold a memorial ceremony for him," He Shouwu, who joined the trip, wrote online.
Xinghuo Travel, which organized the tour, is one of a growing number of companies that hope to tap into China's outbound red tourism market, which is expected to expand with central government approval in recent years. In the past years, the company has organized trips to Canada to remember Canadian physician and communist Norman Bethune, who is known as a hero in China for his work as a medic during the War against Japanese Aggression (1937-45), to Cuba to see its socialist society, and to North Korea to remember the Chinese People's Volunteer Army who fought and died in the Korean War (1950-53), among other destinations.
Red resurgence
Red tourism is not a new thing in China. The Chinese government and Party has been promoting it since 2004, the year in which they coined the term, and over the past decade, China has invested over 9 billion yuan ($1.39 billion) in the construction of red tourism sites and tours, according to the National Red Tourism Coordination Executive Team. Every year, millions of visitors flock to China's red sites to pay tribute to former communist leaders and learn about the Communist Party of China's (CPC) revolutionary past.
Although visitors have been growing at over 16 percent a year on average, red tourism hasn't always been in favor with the Chinese government. In 2012 and 2013, after former CPC politburo member and a devout advocate of "red culture" Bo Xilai was convicted on corruption charges, red tourism went through a "sensitive period," a tourism industry insider who declined to be named told the Global Times. He said some companies even changed the name of their red tours to "healthy tours" to be less conspicuous.
In 2014, the State Council, China's cabinet, showed its approval of red tourism in a document on reforming and developing outbound tourism, in which it advocated the promotion of red tourism and education in revolutionary traditions so as to boost people's "socialist core values," a set of virtues that include harmony, patriotism and prosperity.
President Xi Jinping has also mentioned red tourism multiple times. When he visited Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, home to the CPC's wartime base, in February last year, he said that red tourism must be developed with a precise orientation, centering around red education and the inheritance of red genes, so that party cadres and ordinary people can be immersed in "red spirits" when they visit the sites.
"The State Council and President Xi's mentions of red tourism boosted our confidence greatly," Diao Weiming, manager of Xinghuo Travel, told the Global Times.
