Reference News Network, December 13 report: Singapore's Strait Times website on December 11 published an article titled "From Planes, Cars to Beer, Chinese Youth Are Falling in Love with Factory Tours." The article is translated as follows:
A Sunday afternoon, a dozen children entered an airplane factory, and the spacious and empty workshop suddenly became lively and noisy.
They took photos of a row of elegantly shaped propeller planes, then lingered around the production line of the large "Kunlong" AG600 amphibious aircraft, asking the tour guide various questions while touring.
"Why does it have 'nostrils'?" a little girl asked. "Why are there things inside the 'nostrils'?" another boy pointed to the front of the plane's air intake and asked.
These children and their 20 accompanying parents were visiting AVIC General Aircraft South China Aircraft Industry Company. Now, more and more Chinese factories have become popular tourist attractions, and this company is one of them.
Factory tours have become popular. Parents with young children, middle and primary school students participating in study tours, and curious young people are all flocking to these places, hoping to catch a glimpse of the real faces of these Chinese manufacturing giants.
Sun, a tour guide at the Zhuhai factory, told the Strait Times that the factory receives visitors almost every weekend and most weekdays, many of whom are middle and primary school students.
According to Xinhua News Agency, citing data from Ctrip Travel, during this year's Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday, industrial tours broke through the crowd, becoming an important option for many tourists' travel plans, with market attention for aviation and automotive industry tours exceeding 20%.
On the social platform Xiaohongshu, posts tagged with "factory visits" have been viewed over 4.6 million times. These posts either promote various factory tour projects or share visit guides, covering a wide range of factory types, from car and airplane manufacturing plants, to milk and beer, even Rubik's cube production factories.
The Xiaomi car factory in Beijing has become a highly sought-after destination. Visitors can not only tour the highly automated production lines, test drive the flagship model SU7, but also experience the staff canteen. Since opening to the public this year, the factory has received more than 100,000 visitors. Due to the high public enthusiasm, Xiaomi has increased its visit sessions in December to 118, and the public can register through official channels.
A Beijing mother shared her experience on Xiaohongshu, writing: "It's really impressive!" In her view, modern factories today are far different from the scenes she remembered from two decades ago, where workers used screwdrivers to tighten screws on the assembly line.
Gu Jin, founder of Beijing Zhiqiran Education Consulting Co., Ltd., who has been organizing aviation factory visit activities since 2018, believes that the rising popularity of industrial tours reflects the public's pride in China's technological strength, as well as the efforts of schools and parents to stimulate teenagers' interest in science and technology.
"This is an important part of science popularization work," Gu Jin said. The company's most popular project is organizing visits to a rocket manufacturing plant located in Beijing. According to him, more than a thousand people have signed up for visits this year.
In addition to educational value, such visit activities have also brought considerable income and publicity benefits to companies. For example, the Tsingtao Brewery Museum allows visitors to pay to tour the production line and taste beer. The museum achieved a comprehensive revenue of 200 million yuan in 2024. (Translated by Wang Dongdong)
June 16, people visited the Xiaomi car factory in Beijing. (Xinhua News Agency)
Original source: toutiao.com/article/7583264929428406835/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author.