As Wu Hong Li served café lattes to a couple in matching polo shirts, their two daughters finished homework at a large pine breakfast table. The Beijing-based family was among the many guests at Wu’s gray brick and tile hotel, which opened in 2025 in Datong’s old city center. Datong, with a population of more than three million in Shanxi province, is located 350 kilometers west of Beijing. For the recent Golden Week – the national holiday period held from October 1 to 8 – they, like many residents of the Chinese capital, traveled to this mining city that is on the cusp of a tourist transformation.

In 2008, the city’s former mayor, Geng Yanbo, envisioned a return to Datong’s imperial roots and launched an enormous urban redesign project, notably creating an entirely new old town surrounded by reconstructed ramparts. This vast operation required the demolition of 140,000 homes and the relocation of 500,000 residents – the equivalent of the population of Lyon.

The construction work has only just concluded. To fund it, the municipality took on 13 billion yuan in debt (nearly €1.6 billion), but the gamble has paid off. In 2024 in Datong, visitor numbers soared by 108% compared to 2023, reaching nearly 16.7 million visitors, according to the city government. They were drawn by the new old town, its museums and monuments, and, outside the city, by the Yungang Grottoes and the Hanging Temple.

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