"A new photogenic spot for social media will emerge in Zigong! A place where you'll enjoy the food, the scenery, and entertain." At 19:30 on November 15, the highly anticipated online meeting called "The Time and Space: Longmen Town" kicked off by promoting the new tourism project of Zigong culture and tourism industry to the vast number of netizens through live network broadcast. It attracted many online fans, reaching over 12,000 viewers at the same time. Now it ranks ninth in Douyin's (Chinese TikTok) list of scenic spots.

Yu Yong, the Deputy Director-general of Zigong City Bureau of Culture, Radio, and Tourism, and Lu Chenyun, the Deputy General Manager of Zigong Culture and Tourism Investment, attended the online meeting.

As an old industrial city, Zigong is undergoing a critical period of transformation and upgrading. It faces the challenge of accelerating the construction of an exemplary city through deepening reform and opening up in the new era. In this context, the project of this province's first commercial complex with the theme of dinosaur culture —"The Time and Space: Longmen Town" came into being. Shortly, it will become a beautiful scenery of Zigong revealing its culture and beauty.

The project is located in front of the Zigong Fangte Dinosaur Kingdom theme park and close to the Zigong Dinosaur Museum. The unique city commercial complex invested, constructed, and run by Zigong Culture and Tourism Investment covered over 322,917 ft² and had a total investment of about 720 million yuan. As an auxiliary building of the Fangte Dinosaur Kingdom theme park, "The Time and Space: Longmen Town" has entered the final stage of construction and is expected to open for trial operation at the end of 2021.

Its visitor center is the landmark of the project. In the shape of Mamenchisaurus Youngi (a sauropod dinosaur known for their remarkably long necks and the most representative dinosaur genus in Zigong), it is located on the central axis of the avenue. There are three commercial buildings on both sides of the road with styles of the ocean, forest, and cave, including food stalls, theme hotels, malls, souvenir shops, etc.

During the first half of this year, "The Time and Space: Longmen Town" has started its global investment with a success rate of more than 90%. Famous merchants such as McDonald's, Axi Restaurant, Häagen-Dazs, and other well-known brands have approvals to settlements. The self-constructed project of Zigong Cultural tourism Investment regarding the dinosaur-themed family hotel, which is expected to be built in Area C, has come to the process of decoration and is expected to be unveiled in early 2022.

"Once completed, the project will become a representative landmark for the dinosaur culture industry of this city," said Lu Chenyun. She introduced that the Zigong Fangte Dinosaur Kingdom theme park, the Zigong Dinosaur Museum, and "The Time and Space: Longmen Town" will form a core scenic spot of dinosaur culture tourism marked by the characteristic of "one museum, one park, and one town." While promoting the local culture and tourism, it will cooperate with the business and merchants and drive the development of the cultural and tourism industry chain, realizing an attractive place for "eating, living, traveling, shopping and entertainment."

Embracing a long history, Zigong is a city of charm and uniqueness. It's proud of its dinosaur culture given its discoveries on hundreds of millions of years of dinosaur ruins. Meanwhile, it's also famous for being a well-salt capital of 2,000 years and a city full of colorful lanterns of 800 years. Zigong also enjoys a worldwide reputation for its four features: namely the "Hometown of Jiangjie," the "Salt City of 1,000 years", the" Hometown of Dinosaurs," and the "Lamp City of China."

Yu Yong believes that the tourism industry of Zigong will enter a new stage with the opening of the Fangte Dinosaur Kingdom theme park and the 28th Zigong International Dinosaur Lantern Festival. Guided by the innovative development model of combining "culture + travel + commerce," Zigong will establish a new tourism commercial complex that is distinctive, in line with the demand of the new generation of consumers.

In recent years, Zigong has prioritized cultural tourism and continued to promote itself as an international cultural and tourism city. Two major cultural and tourism projects, the China Lantern World and Fangte Dinosaur Kingdom theme park, have been built to reshape Zigong's role in enhancing the province's culture. By 2024, Zigong will strive to achieve the Two Centenaries development goals, which expect that the cultural and tourism industry's added value will reach 10 billion yuan and the number of tourism enterprises will reach 100. Soon it will be built into an essential city of Bashu culture and a remarkable city for consumption within the Chengdu-Chongqing region.