In Dazuo Village on Fujian's coast, the traditional blue-and-black attire of Hui'an women was once seen as old-fashioned. Today, it has become a tourism asset, helping draw more than 200,000 visitors a year and generating more than 3 million yuan ($440,000) in additional income for local households.

The Hui'an Women Cultural Park, built on a former mining site, lets visitors rent the iconic yellow bamboo hats, embroidered jackets, wide-leg trousers and silver waist chains. Tourists pay to dress up, take photos and join net-mending demonstrations led by elderly villagers—turning passive sightseeing into an immersive cultural experience.

More than 300 photography tour groups visit each year. The park employs over 100 local women as paid models. But the spending doesn't stop at the park. Visitors stay overnight, eat seafood, buy handcrafted accessories, and pay for access to the museum. And that's where the bigger opportunity lies—in getting visitors to spend beyond the attraction itself and across the wider local economy.

China's Ministry of Commerce and eight other departments on Tuesday issued an opinion aimed at boosting lower-tier markets and county-level consumption, including upgrading local consumption channels and integrating the primary, secondary and tertiary industries.

Dazuo Village offers a glimpse of how this works in practice. The model requires relatively little new infrastructure investment—the park reclaimed abandoned land—while a traditional cultural asset generates spending across accommodation, dining, retail and tourism services.

"Traditional sightseeing often revolves around one-off spending, such as entrance tickets, transportation and simple meals, leaving little room for further consumption. By contrast, intangible cultural heritage tourism can unlock new sources of spending by creating immersive experiences that turn visitors into consumers," said Fu Jiang, assistant researcher at the Institute of Market Circulation and Consumption, Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

For the village, cultural preservation and economic growth are no longer separate goals. They have become part of the same business model, turning a traditional costume into a new engine for county-level consumption.