Cultural tourism digital collection is booming, how to better release the value of digital assets?

From the 3D version of the henan museum's digital cultural creation "Women's Good Owl Zun" to the "〇 Universe • Qiangong Series" digital collection in Xi'an Qujiang Daming Palace National Heritage Park, from the "Dinosaur" digital blind box in Changzhou China Dinosaur Park to the "DameiHeshan" series of digital collections in Shandong Taishan Mountain Scenic Area, the digital collection of cultural tourism is booming. How to grasp the attributes of the digital collection of cultural tourism and release the value of cultural relics data assets in the process of meta-universe construction has become a topic of concern in the industry.

Ren Sitong painted

Culture is the core of digital collections

"The phenomenon of 'sold out in seconds' of digital collections launched by museums and tourist attractions allows us to see that digital collections have a natural fit with the cultural tourism industry, especially the digital cultural creation of museums as pioneers, which confirms consumers' love and pursuit of digital collections with rich cultural connotations." Han Jingting, secretary general of the Working Committee on Digital Twin Technologies and Applications, said.

Han Jingting listed the relevant information she paid attention to to reporters: The Hubei Provincial Museum made the treasure of the town museum", "Yue Wang Gou Jian Sword", a digital cultural relic, limited to 10,000 copies of the external sale, attracting 600,000 people to buy online, and sold out in just 3 seconds. Henan Museum's first 3D version of the digital cultural creation "Women's Good Owl Zun" was officially launched, and it was also empty of seconds. The Digital Collection developed by the National Museum of China with the theme of four national treasure-level cultural relics, namely the Four-Sheep Bronze Fangzun, the Western Han Dynasty Bronze Bronze Rhinoceros Statue, the "Women's Good" Bronze Owl Statue, and the Painted Goose Fish Bronze Lantern, as well as the digital collections issued by dunhuang Art Research Institute, Hunan Provincial Museum and other units, are sold out in the hot atmosphere of "second kill". "The museum's digital cultural creation allows people to experience a new way of 'collecting national treasures'."

"No one around me has ever bought a digital collection. I have browsed platforms such as Whale Sigh, Xi Lang, and Phantom Core, and feel that digital collections are the 'meta-universe tides' in the cultural tourism industry. Compared with the collection of cultural relics or authentic calligraphy and paintings, digital collections allow buyers to buy, view and collect online at a low price, without worrying about the storage and storage of collections, counterfeiting and other problems that plague physical collectors. Shen Li, a young teacher at Shanghai Tourism College, said that digital collections have made the unattainable collection of art and cultural relics go off the altar, and through digital encryption technology, ordinary people, especially Generation Z, have the opportunity to experience the joy of collecting and stimulate people's enthusiasm for entering the cultural and expo venues.

"I had a programmer-themed NFT digital collection on the Magic Core app. At that time, I thought it was interesting, I wanted to understand it, and I also rubbed the hot spots, in case I could open up the transaction in the future, maybe I could appreciate in value. Most of the digital collections in the magic core APP are priced between 98-118 yuan, but they can't be grabbed. I was still very excited when I drew it, after all, it was limited. Since then, these collections have been idle and are not opened very often. Li Zhaorui, a master's student majoring in tourism management at Beijing Second Chinese College, told reporters.

For the relationship between digital collections and metacosmology, Li Zhaorui said that if the metacosm is a space for strong interaction between virtual and reality, the most prominent feature of the NFT art collection is the possibility of interaction with reality, that is, the NFT art collection can become the only corresponding object of real objects in the virtual world.

"Virtual objects created by VR (virtual reality) technology do not have the concept of ownership, and the emergence of NFTs has made the objects created by VR have a unique 'owner'. The birth of the NFT (Non-Fungible Token), a non-homogeneous token, gave the concept of ownership of virtual items, which also solved the most fundamental transaction problem in the metaverse. "Li Zhaorui said that NFTs can be both commodities and currencies, and the ownership of NFTs can be transferred through transactions, and their transactions can be settled in real terms with currency, or they can be settled using homogeneous tokens such as Ether and Bitcoin." In the context of the metaverse, NFTs have a rich imagination space. ”

Li Zhaorui introduced that NFTs have been applied in the fields of cultural exhibitions and art collection. Now, artists can buy an NFT plot of land in the Ethereum meta-universe Decentraland, build their own NFT art gallery on it, scan and upload their real-world paintings into an NFT digital collection, and hang them in the virtual art gallery for exhibition and sale. At this time, while viewing the paintings in the virtual art gallery, visitors from all over the world can purchase the NFT digital collection and may receive the original paintings corresponding to the NFT collection sent by the artist.

"Since 2021, the trend of digital collections has gradually emerged, although there are not many people who are really involved in the production and collection of digital collections, but this does not affect the rapidly heating up attention and hot discussions of all parties." Wu Jinmei, deputy director of the Tourism Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and deputy general manager of Beijing BTG Group, said that culture is the core of digital collections, and the growth of digital collections cannot rely on short-term speculation, but should be product innovation that follows the attributes of "collections" and excavates cultural connotations.

Zhong Sheng, director of the Cultural Planning Center of the National Institute of Cultural Development of Wuhan University, also believes that digital cultural and creative products should not be simplistic "replicas", but should adhere to "cultural and creative empowerment". In the process of creating digital collections, cultural tourism enterprises should excavate and give cultural connotations and values to digital collections, explore innovative forms of digital collections, activate culture and art, and spread culture to the public in a way that is popular with the public.

On March 26, 60 curators and scholars from 50 museums and universities across the country jointly released the "Initiative on Museums Actively Participating in the Construction of the Metacosm", calling on museums to conform to the development of the times, give full play to their own advantages, and actively participate in the construction of the metacosm. The "Initiative" proposes that as a public cultural service institution, museums should enhance the awareness of open sharing of collection resources, especially digital resources, establish the concept of win-win cooperation, and let limited resources create unlimited possibilities in the metaverse. The core of the museum is cultural relics, behind the cultural relics is the culture, the museum actively participates in the construction of the meta-universe, will surely inject richer cultural connotations into the digital collection, and through the digital collection, let more people, especially young people understand the cultural relics and the culture behind them.

Grasp the three attributes of the digital collection of cultural tourism

According to reports, from March 24 to 26, the digital collection of "〇 Universe • Thousand Palace Series" launched by Xi'an Qujiang Daming Palace National Heritage Park landed on the Taobao Ali auction platform, and 30,000 copies of the collection were sold out in 9 minutes, with a total revenue of more than 600,000 yuan. Gather the three digital collections in the series (Mirror of the Thousand Palaces, The Pessim of the Thousand Palaces and the Spirit of the Thousand Palaces) to enjoy a lifetime of free access to the Daming Palace National Heritage Park. According to the report, Daming Palace National Heritage Park became the first cultural and tourism unit in China to realize the listing of 10,000 digital collections in its own stores and sold out; "Mirror of a Thousand Palaces" became the first 10,000-part sold-out digital collection in the cultural tourism section of Ali's auction platform.

Han Jingting believes that the cultural tourism industry has many IP products, which can provide more new scenes for the application of digital collections, not only the most popular cultural relics and intangible cultural heritage digital collections, but also the explosive digital collections created in more scenes in the future. "But overall, the current role of digital collections in the cultural tourism industry in terms of profitability and drainage is still limited, mainly to bring more exposure and attention, and increase the publicity heat."

"The transformation of cultural and tourism resources into digital collections requires the extraction of specific fragments, specific pictures, and specific records from the original big scenes, big routes, and big cultures, and digitally form relevant rights and interests with collection value through technical means, and then sell them to collectors and buyers in need through platform transactions." Wu Jinmei said that the creation of the digital collection of cultural tourism is a new thing, which needs to be standardized while establishing a business model, cultivating the supply side and the demand side in both directions, continuously improving and improving technical support, and exploring practice under the fault tolerance mechanism.

"The emergence of digital collections is a new social phenomenon produced by the development of material life to a certain stage, accompanied by the continuous progress of modern science and technology. To explore the application of digital collections in the field of culture and tourism, we first need to consider what is the fundamental purpose of the sale, circulation and purchase of digital collections, and then think about the significance and value of cultural tourism enterprises and tourist destinations in developing digital collections. Li Hao, a researcher at the Cultural Tourism Research Base of the China Tourism Research Institute of Henan University, said.

Li Hao believes that when cultural tourism enterprises or tourist destinations develop digital collections, they should grasp the three attributes of cultural tourism digital collections.

One is social. At this stage, the buyers of domestic digital collections are mainly young people, in addition to some buyers with speculative purposes, young people who are willing to buy digital collections are more recognized as a kind of identity identification and self-entertainment "enclosure and self-emergence" brought by digital collections. Therefore, when developing digital collections, cultural tourism enterprises need to focus on the "scarcity" of cultural tourism digital collections for the value of young people's identity symbols and social interactions, such as tourist attractions can give tourists the symbol of membership status through cultural tourism digital collections, develop exclusive member rights and interests, and continuously give cultural tourism digital collections value, so that cultural tourism digital collections become a "pass" to join the exclusive circle of scenic spots, and increase tourists' sense of identity and belonging to scenic spots through the attribution of the circle.

The second is storytelling. Any kind of cultural tourism product has its own life cycle, under the outlet of digital collections, cultural tourism enterprises should think about how to extend the life cycle of cultural tourism digital collections. Whether it is the digital collection of cultural tourism developed by relying on real resources or the digital collection of cultural tourism created in the virtual world, culture is its core competitiveness. Cultural tourism digital collections should give full play to the cultural attributes of resources, through the mining of stories and the creation of scenarios, create exclusive IP, derive a series of digital collections, and extend the life cycle of cultural tourism digital collections. The story-rich digital collection of cultural tourism is more vital.

The third is landability. Digital collections can be separated from reality, but cultural tourism digital collections can not only play a role in the virtual world, but also help the development of the real cultural and tourism industry. The landing of the digital collection of cultural tourism mainly refers to how to realize the transformation of online and offline through the development of digital collections, and ultimately serve the real economy. On the one hand, tourists can choose to buy relevant digital collections because they have visited scenic spots in the field to achieve the transformation from offline to online; on the other hand, how to attract consumers who buy digital collections of cultural tourism online to reach scenic spots and tourist destinations, realize the transformation from online to offline, and thus extend the cultural tourism industry chain is a more important issue.

"For cultural tourism enterprises, the development of cultural tourism digital collections is not only to add a new cultural tourism product, but also to attract the attention of the new generation of tourists through representative and unique digital collections, so as to open up a new marketing channel." Li Hao said.

Unlock the value of cultural relics data assets

Wu Jinmei believes that from the perspective of the general trend, digital technology is affecting and changing the lives of the public in an all-round way, and the emergence of digital collections is born with the trend; from the perspective of digital collections themselves, their business models, industrial chains, market rules, etc. have yet to be built, and digital collections are not yet mature at this stage; from the perspective of the cultural tourism industry, the digitization of cultural and tourism resources and rapid promotion, so that people can conveniently appreciate and experience the beauty of humanities and nature, which is conducive to expanding the space for cultural and tourism development, and is also in line with the development direction of a better life.

"The emergence of digital collections not only provides a better bridge for digital assetization, broadens the boundaries of digital assets, but also improves the tradability of digital content." However, whether digital collections can open up a second growth space for the cultural tourism industry and provide new monetization channels for the scenic spots' own IP also needs to be further verified by the market after the heat has receded and the capital has withdrawn. Han Jingting said.

Li Xinjian, executive director of the Capital Institute of Culture and Tourism Development of Beijing Second Foreign Chinese University, believes that the digitization of cultural relics resources is the requirement of the times, on the one hand, this is an important means to effectively cope with the relationship between the protection and utilization of cultural relics resources, and the pressure of physical resources can be effectively diverted through digital means; on the other hand, with the help of digital means to effectively retain and disseminate, limited resources can break through the constraints of time and space, so that more audiences can appreciate and understand cultural relics resources at the lowest cost.

"How to better play a role and release value of cultural relics data assets after digitization is a topic that needs to be studied urgently. Digital collections are one of the attempts, but I personally believe that if digital collections are just digital 'reproductions' of physical cultural relics, their value obviously needs to be tested by the market. Li Xinjian said that if these data resources are used to derive new digital art creations through algorithms, the digital art works formed may be much more valuable and meaningful than the current digital collections. However, at this time, it is already a new work of art that is different from the traditional physical artwork, but the embodiment form is only a virtual form.

"From the perspective of development, the current digital collection is only a small-scale value realization method after digitization, and the more important and potential direction should be to carry out more socialized and market-oriented secondary creation after the ownership, use and income rights of ownership norms." The development space after giving full play to the enthusiasm and creativity of the market will far exceed our imagination. Li Xinjian said.

Li Zhaorui said that the value of domestic NFT digital collections has not yet been exerted. "On the one hand, the domestic NFT transaction is limited, the NFT transaction authority between various platforms is almost not open, of course, there is a possibility of derealization to virtual trading; on the other hand, the producers of digital collections now only focus on improving the value of collections through limited distribution, while ignoring the value of the interaction between NFT digital collections and real objects."

Regarding the problems and risks that cultural tourism enterprises and tourist destinations may face in developing digital collections, Li Hao said that it is necessary to be vigilant against the risk of speculation. Although the mainland has not yet opened the transaction of digital collections, the hype phenomenon of digital collections already exists, and the development of digital collections in cultural tourism is worth vigilance under the premise of taking into account the roles of collection and social interaction.

"The issue of platform building also needs attention. Unlike foreign NFTs, which are mostly based on public chain issuance, due to differences in regulatory policies, domestic NFT issuance platforms are mainly based on large network platforms, and the essence is a private blockchain. The distribution of cultural tourism digital collections also mainly depends on large distribution platforms, if the platform collapses, whether the cultural tourism digital collections in the hands of consumers will face the problem of zeroing, and the series of problems that may be caused by this are also worth thinking about. Li Hao said.

At the end of March, WeChat rectified the public accounts and mini programs related to digital collections, which attracted attention. Tencent's WeChat team said: "According to the relevant national laws and regulations, in order to prevent the risk of speculation in virtual currency transactions, the WeChat public platform has recently standardized and rectified the public accounts and mini programs that speculate and sell digital collections for the second time. ”

Han Jingting said that the digital collection will become part of the metaverse, and it is currently with unlimited imagination space. As an emerging thing, digital collections still have many risks, such as distribution platforms, market supervision, product quality, platform technology risks and other issues. "Although there are certain risks in the trading and circulation of digital collections under the existing legal and regulatory system in China, we believe that the digital collection market will definitely develop in the direction of more legal and compliant in the future." (Author: Zhang Mei; Editor: Cao Xuewen)

Original title: "Cultural Tourism Digital Collection: Grasping the Cultural Core and Releasing the Value of Digital Assets"