Photo source: official website of Hunan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism

The Hunan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism and the People's Government of Chenzhou City held a press conference in Changsha on February 8. It announced that the Hunan Rural Cultural Tourism Festival and Rucheng Hot Spring Tourism Season will take place in Rucheng County, Chenzhou City on February 17. The events will last till February 28.

Two main activities will be held during the festival, including the opening ceremony and a seminar on culture and tourism empowering rural revitalization. Six series activities will be arranged, including a night garden party and Rucheng incense dragon dance, a national intangible heritage item; art performances by Hunan's Rucheng County, Guangdong's Renhua County, and Jiangxi's Chongyi County; China Outdoor Fitness Leisure Conference (Rucheng Stop); hot spring healthcare camping; tourism enthusiasts from Hunan, Guangdong, and Jiangxi visiting Rucheng; and Rucheng Hot Spring, Sea of Flowers, and Light Festival.

Chenzhou is the hometown of hot spring in China. There are more than 40 known natural hot spring spots. Among them, the "Rucheng Hot Spring" was known as "Holy Water" in the Southern Song Dynasty. Its water temperature is up to 98 °C, rich in more than 30 kinds of trace elements beneficial to the human body, including silicon, calcium, strontium, and radon. In the past three years, Rucheng received more than 4.5 million tourist arrivals for hot spring, with tourism income of 4.5 billion yuan, and hot spring tourism has become an important pillar industry of Rucheng's economic development.