Joyfully nominated for

News from Barcelona, Spain: On November 16, 2016, at the 6th Global Smart City Expo held in Barcelona, Spain, China's Dunhuang was honored with the 2016 Global Smart City Expo "Smart City Nomination Award," becoming the first city in China to receive this international accolade in the field of smart cities. This follows the successful hosting of the first Silk Road (Dunhuang) International Cultural Expo in Dunhuang, China, bringing Dunhuang back into the global spotlight and once again drawing worldwide attention to Dunhuang International Cultural Tourism City.

According to reports, the Global Smart City Awards include three categories: City Award, Project Award, and Innovation Award. Each year, hundreds of proposals from smart city experts around the world are received. These prestigious awards aim to recognize, promote, and support innovative solutions and strategies in the global smart city construction field. At the 2016 Global Smart City Expo, after repeated screening of over 600 proposals, six cities stood out and were awarded the 2016 Global Smart City Nomination Award: China's Dunhuang, the United States' New York, Russia's Moscow, India's Pune, South Korea's Seoul, and the Netherlands (Hollands Kroon). After intense competition, New York, USA, ultimately won the "Global Smart City Award."

The Global Smart City Expo is currently the world’s largest exhibition themed around smart cities. It is jointly organized and initiated by the Spanish government, the World Bank, and others, enjoying an outstanding reputation globally. Renowned global ICT companies such as IBM, Huawei, Microsoft, SAP, Cisco, AWS, Siemens, and Amazon participate, aiming to lead global smart city development, attracting decision-makers, builders, and suppliers of smart cities worldwide to exchange ideas and inspire innovative solutions.

China's Dunhuang, with the theme "Smart Tourism Leading Smart City Construction to Promote Silk Road Tourism Development," received unanimous praise from smart city experts, judges, businesses, and institutions around the world. The honor of the Global Smart City Nomination Award fully affirms Dunhuang’s significant contributions to smart city construction and the promotion of Silk Road tourism development.

The Dunhuang Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government place high importance on smart city construction. The "Dunhuang International Cultural Tourism City Construction Development Plan Outline" lists the smart city platform project as a key component, advancing step-by-step according to the principles of planning first, government guidance, market operation, and phased implementation. The Municipal Party Committee and Government established Dunhuang Smart Tourism Co., Ltd. as the implementing entity for Dunhuang’s smart tourism and smart city construction. Building on the company’s operations, information construction and maintenance work has been achieved across six provinces and cities along the Silk Road, 31 destinations, and over 150 scenic spots, permeating multiple aspects of travelers’ journeys including transportation, accommodation, entertainment, and consumption, leveraging internet technology to drive the integrated development of tourism resources across the entire industry.

The "Smart Dunhuang" project planned by Dunhuang includes "One Center, Nine Major Sections, and Thirty-One Projects." The "One Center" refers to the Smart Dunhuang "Flying Apsaras" Cloud Computing Center, which consists of three foundational platforms: public basic network, public information platform, and public information database. The "Nine Major Sections" include two featured sections—smart culture and smart tourism—as well as seven foundational sections: smart social services, smart government affairs, smart planning and management, smart construction management, smart transportation, smart ecology, and smart homes. Through years of exploration and practice, Dunhuang has forged a development path of "Smart Tourism Leading Industrial-Type Smart City Construction."

To realize the smart city construction plan, Dunhuang Municipality has joined forces with Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. and Gansu Broadcasting Network Co., Ltd. to comprehensively build a cloud computing center and Wi-Fi and fiber-optic networks covering the entire oasis. The cloud center connects various business systems—including public security, transportation, emergency command, urban management, and tourism—via a big data platform. Data sharing enables the entire city of Dunhuang to achieve unified office operations, rapid decision-making, quick responses to urban management issues, and efficient, timely handling of public safety, traffic, and social emergencies.

Starting in 2014, Dunhuang Smart Tourism was launched comprehensively and developed rapidly. Combining the Internet+ initiative, it created an "Online Dunhuang" and "Smart Scenic Area," quickly pioneering a new smart tourism model integrating cultural tourism with information technology and linking online promotion with offline operations. This transformed traditional Dunhuang tourism into smart tourism, creating a distinctive, replicable, and scalable "Dunhuang Experience." The experience of Dunhuang Smart Tourism is prominently reflected in three major systems. The first is a smart promotion and display system. The official Dunhuang tourism website, Weibo, and WeChat platforms serve as "online service windows for Dunhuang." Through channels like Baidu and Sina, images, texts, and videos about Dunhuang are uploaded and updated daily, helping more people learn about, aspire to visit, and explore Dunhuang via the internet. The second is a smart marketing and transaction system. Partnering with e-commerce platforms like Tmall and JD.com, as well as online service providers such as Ctrip and Meituan, it has enabled online sales of scenic tickets, hotel accommodations, and local specialties. Notably, the locally developed e-commerce trading platform "Tuoxing Network" and the family apartment brand "Camel Castle" were created, broadening marketing channels, revitalizing idle resources, benefiting local merchants and residents, and better meeting tourists’ needs. The third is a smart management and service system. Online reservation platforms, 24-hour online consultation, industry data analysis... Through online reservations, payments, and dispatching, it helps tourism management departments acquire more comprehensive and accurate industry information while enabling smoother and more convenient travel experiences for visitors.

The great historical opportunity presented by the 2016 First Silk Road (Dunhuang) International Cultural Expo allowed Dunhuang Smart Tourism and smart city construction to enter another phase of rapid development. Adhering to intensive construction, industrialized operation, and cross-industry application, Dunhuang implemented information projects such as Wireless City, Public Information Platform, Spatial Geographic Information Platform, and Integrated Payments, further facilitating the integration of the city’s information resources, business synergy, and data sharing. During the Expo, the renowned national historic and cultural city of Dunhuang showcased to the world not only timeless historical memories such as the Mogao Caves, Yangguan, and Yumenguan, but also high-speed digital experiences built upon big data and cloud platforms.

Currently, Dunhuang’s wireless Wi-Fi coverage can accommodate over 30,000 tourists simultaneously. The entire city offers smart services at scenic spots, where visitors can enter using paperless tickets. Mogao Caves reservations and dome theater experiences all use the latest and most advanced immersive technologies. Background music is available throughout the scenic areas, while the Mingsha Mountain · Crescent Lake area features electronic fences that automatically alert tourists to safety concerns and reduce management costs. Merchants across Dunhuang have adopted mobile payment methods such as WeChat Pay and Alipay.

In addition, guided by the concept of "Safe City" construction, Dunhuang has established smart management institutions—the Dunhuang Social Management Center and Monitoring Operation Command Center—integrating the command and monitoring functions and application systems of departments such as public security, transportation, transport management, and law enforcement. This has built a smart, safe, and efficient urban operational information management system.

The Dunhuang delegation was invited to attend the expo, joining global smart city industry leaders to discuss a bright future for smart cities. Liu Xiaofeng, General Manager of Dunhuang Smart Tourism Co., Ltd., shared insights on Dunhuang’s smart city construction experience: “During Dunhuang’s peak tourist season, the massive influx of visitors poses serious challenges to cultural relic preservation, tourism services, visitor safety, and urban management. We hope to leverage new ICT technologies, integrate urban IoT systems to build a tourism big data platform, create an ‘Internet+’ marketing model, and deeply integrate online digital marketing with offline tourism services. Ultimately, we aim to achieve smart service provision for tourists, smart management of scenic areas, and comprehensive marketing and promotion of destinations, driving the sharing of Silk Road tourism resources, achieving balanced regional economic development, and extending public services across the entire smart city construction.”

Dunhuang, with its long history and profound cultural heritage, is hailed as the “Cultural Sanctuary, Human Dunhuang.” Through centuries of East-West cultural exchange, it has fostered a lofty, inclusive, benevolent, and principled Dunhuang spirit. With the continuous advancement of information technology, Dunhuang International Cultural Tourism City is bound to take flight.

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