Around noon on August 10, only five to seven vehicles passed in five minutes on Cuiyun Road in Qingliu Town, Xindu District, Chengdu. Liu Yuangang, deputy secretary of the Cuiyun Village Party Committee, counted the traffic flow from the Pengzhou Mengyang direction. The average daily traffic on this two-lane village road has nearly reached the level of a county road. Behind this traffic lies two economic forces: one is the emerging cultural tourism consumption zone centered on the hometown of writer Ai Wu, and the other is the Mengyang Agricultural and Sideline Products Wholesale Market, with annual transaction value exceeding 40 billion yuan—a key price indicator for Southwest China's agricultural products, known as "Shouguang in the north, Mengyang in the south."
The Qing-Meng Cultural Tourism Corridor, launched in 2023, is weaving these two forces together. After three years of exploration, what economic outcomes has this cross-district industrial corridor delivered?
Turning Resources into Assets: Valuing the Ai Wu Cultural Heritage
The corridor's underlying asset is the Ai Wu cultural heritage. Qingliu Town has established a "One Park, Two Museums" (Folk Culture Park, Memorial Hall, and Museum of Original Aspirations and Missions), which attracted over 300,000 visitors last year. Plans are underway for the "Five Elders of Shu" Museum, while seven cultural sites, including a century-old water mill, the Wumu Spring, and a Zhiqing courtyard, are integrated into the 2-kilometer "Cuiyun Ring."
Li Jian, Party Secretary of Qingliu Town, calculated the potential: just the Wumu Spring site, which tests show is rich in strontium and metasilicic acid and meets natural mineral water standards, could yield an annual potential of tens of millions of yuan if developed for bottled water or health products. The "Five Elders of Shu" Museum is also being prepared for construction.
More importantly, space is being revitalized. Qingliu Town collaborates with Mengyang Street, integrating nearly 100 mu of idle homesteads and over 20 usable forest-yard compounds. "They have transformed from 'sleeping assets' into 'operational assets,'" Li Jian noted. The latest small-scale project is the renovation of the Lijiayan courtyard in Baituhe Village: the first phase budget is 1.36 million yuan, supporting the Ai Wu Square and upgrading residential facades. Tang Kuanzhang, Party Secretary of Baituhe Village, stated: "After completion, we will connect with the Ai Wu former residence in Cuiyun Village to channel tourist flow between the two areas."
What can 1.36 million yuan leverage? After the two areas join forces, even if only 5% to 10% of the commercial and customer flow from the Mengyang wholesale market enters the cultural tourism corridor, it would mean about 500,000 visitors annually. "Doubling tourist numbers within two years"—Ye Shanghai, Party Secretary of Mengyang Street, predicts this shift in customer composition: from "local leisure travelers" to "wholesale market drop-ins" plus "literature-themed study tourists" plus "rural micro-vacationers," with average spending per customer potentially rising from 120 yuan to over 200 yuan.
Industrial Spillover: Cultural Tourism Drives Agricultural Value
The corridor's economic impact extends beyond cultural tourism. Cuiyun Village has opened a 1.5-kilometer irrigation channel to support over 1,000 mu of fertile farmland; Mengyang's Baituhe Village simultaneously improved its water system—these infrastructure investments essentially upgrade the agricultural value chain. The Mengyang wholesale market, with annual transactions exceeding 40 billion yuan, has long focused on "shipping out" goods without brand enhancement. If the cultural tourism corridor turns "buy-and-leave" business customers into "look-then-buy" tourists, Mengyang's vegetables could evolve from "commodities" to "origin brands."
Tang Jiqiang, Director of the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics' Xiqiu Think Tank, offered a longer-term perspective: "The Qing-Meng corridor isn't about building a scenic spot—it's about creating an urban-rural integration industrial belt, linking Mengyang's supply chain with Qingliu's cultural chain to form a composite business model of 'wholesale market + cultural experience + agricultural tourism.'" His preliminary estimate suggests that once mature, the corridor could directly create over 500 local jobs and indirectly boost related industries—such as agricultural products, handicrafts, and homestays—by over 20 million yuan annually.
"We're currently negotiating with enterprises to cooperatively develop the 'Cuiyun Ring,'" Li Jian revealed. For Qingliu Town's leadership, the area lacks strong industrial foundations and its agricultural industrialization is still developing. However, years of integrating primary and tertiary industries have built a solid ecological base and tourism facilities. Combined with the Ai Wu cultural heritage, pursuing a path of agricultural, commercial, cultural, and tourism integration has become the preferred strategy. "We must continue to thicken our resource advantages."
The Sichuan Provincial Architectural Design and Research Institute has released a version 2.0 plan for the Qing-Meng Cultural Tourism Corridor. It centers on the "Cuiyun Ring," featuring eight new rural consumption scenarios such as health trails, rural trendy shopping, farming experiences, and agricultural education museums, under the brand "Vegetable Aroma Granary, Literary Tianfu."
As the century-old water mill turns again, and as the Ai Wu former residence and the Mengyang vegetable market are connected by the same tourism route, the next chapter depends on whether the two towns can transform "shared cultural memory" into a "community of shared interests."