Black Tiger Spring, a part of the World's Best Spring Scenic Area in Jinan, boasts picturesque views all the year round. [Photo by Wang Qin/WeChat account: gh_6caf012153b6]

Jinan, capital of East China's Shandong province, has a history of 2,600 years, and is blessed with profound cultural heritage items. The city is now taking full advantages of its plentiful cultural resources to boost the development of tourism and cultural industries.

With a profound history and a wealth of cultural heritage items, Jinan is a place of diversified cultures, including the Yellow River culture, which has played a significant role in the development of China, and Longshan culture, which is a late Neolithic civilization located along the middle and lower regions of the Yellow River.

Jinan should rely on its rich cultural resources and strive to enhance its soft power, in a bid to build itself into a strong cultural city, according to Zhang Jiping, a specialist in Jinan's literature and history.

Professor Li Hui of Shandong Normal University's School of Chinese Language and Literature said Jinan's rich cultural resources have established a firm foundation for the city's culture and tourism sector's innovative development.

According to Li, the city should look into new ways to better safeguard, promote, and popularize Jinan's traditional culture, particularly intangible cultural heritage items.

Li went on to say that efforts should be made to drive the tourism industry to become more digital and intelligent, so that cultural tourism may become a powerful force in the development of service trade prosperity and form a new pattern.