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Jilin Province Launches Pilot Program for High-Quality Residential Wellness Tourism
Jilin Province has issued a pilot work plan to develop residential wellness tourism, aiming to attract longer-stay visitors and create new opportunities for foreign founders in the wellness and tourism sectors.
Jilin Province Launches Pilot Program for High-Quality Residential Wellness Tourism
Foreign founders looking to enter China's wellness and tourism sectors should note a new policy initiative from Jilin Province. The General Office of the Jilin Provincial People's Government has issued the "Work Plan for the Pilot Program to Promote High-Quality Development of Residential Wellness Tourism in Jilin Province" (Jizhengbanhan [2026] No. 37), dated April 29, 2026, and published on May 9, 2026. The plan outlines a structured approach to developing residential wellness tourism, which combines longer-stay accommodation with health and leisure services.
Background and Objectives
The plan is designed to implement national policies on service industry development and leverage Jilin's natural ecological resources, summer leisure advantages, and traditional Chinese medicine wellness assets. The goal is to cultivate and expand the residential wellness tourism industry, creating new momentum for regional revitalization. The program targets counties (cities, districts), tourist resorts, key scenic areas, key tourism villages, clustered residential communities, and elderly care institutions with strong advantages, aiming to develop a batch of destinations that are both livable and tourism-friendly, shared by residents and visitors. The vision is to position Jilin as a "second home" integrating summer leisure, wellness vacations, and cultural experiences, thereby increasing the number of visitors staying more than 10 days and forming a migratory bird-style residential pattern.
Quantified Targets by 2028
By 2028, the province aims to develop:
- 6 pilot residential wellness tourism counties (cities, districts) with rich tourism resources, supporting services, and clear wellness advantages;
- 6 pilot residential wellness tourism resorts;
- 10 pilot residential wellness tourism scenic area clusters;
- 20 pilot residential wellness tourism villages;
- 30 pilot residential wellness tourism clustered communities;
- 80 pilot residential elderly care institutions.
Additionally, the plan calls for adding 30,000 new residential wellness beds, achieving an average annual growth rate of over 10% in the number of residential wellness tourist visits with stays exceeding 10 days, reaching 3.8 million person-times by 2028. The plan also aims to initially build residential wellness cluster areas relying on the Greater Changbai Mountain region and the Changchun metropolitan area, and cluster belts along the Songhua River Basin and National Highways G331 and G334, while cultivating and promoting the Greater Changbai Mountain summer residential wellness brand and nationally preferred residential destinations.
Key Tasks
The plan outlines several key tasks, with responsibilities assigned to provincial departments. These include:
- Compiling work guidelines: Develop "Jilin Province Residential Wellness Tourism Pilot Work Guidelines" to provide guidance and standards for promoting the development of residential wellness tourism, focusing on core tourism features, wellness business advantages, and improved supporting services (led by the Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism).
- Leveraging pilot roles: Select key tourism counties (cities, districts), resorts, scenic area clusters, key villages, residential wellness communities, and residential elderly care institutions across the province for pilot development, forming replicable and promotable experiences (led by the Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism).
- Establishing a resource directory: Comprehensively sort residential wellness resources, build a mature resource bank and a reserve resource bank; compile and publish the "Jilin Province Residential Wellness Tourism Resource Directory" and create a "Residential Wellness Tourism Resource Map" to systematically present resource distribution and spatial layout (led by the Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism).
Specific Development Initiatives
The plan details specific initiatives for different types of destinations:
- Cultivating residential wellness counties (cities, districts): Based on resource endowments, build urban residential wellness destinations integrating ecological sightseeing, cultural experiences, health preservation, and leisure shopping. Focus on utilizing core scenic areas, city parks, and leisure blocks, improving public service facilities such as medical care, elderly care, culture, and sports, enhancing smart service levels, and embedding wellness businesses to create comfortable residential environments (led by the Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, Provincial Development and Reform Commission, Provincial Department of Natural Resources, Provincial Health Commission, Provincial Civil Affairs Department, and Provincial Sports Bureau according to their responsibilities; all tasks require implementation by city and county governments).
- Upgrading residential wellness resorts: Relying on the comprehensive advantages of tourist resorts, build high-end, internationalized residential wellness resorts. Accelerate the improvement of international service levels and multilingual reception capabilities, enhance the coordination of supporting facilities and environment. Add wellness centers and develop exclusive services such as private health butlers and customized healing courses (led by the Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism).
- Creating residential wellness scenic area clusters: With scenic areas that have residential conditions as the core, highlight resource characteristics, expand wellness functions, and promote deep integration of scenic areas with surrounding dining, shopping, leisure, and medical life service businesses to form residential wellness clusters. Encourage the establishment of consumption linkage mechanisms, including mutual recognition of discounts and price linkages between scenic areas and surrounding businesses (led by the Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism and Provincial Department of Commerce according to their responsibilities).
- Optimizing residential wellness villages: Relying on key tourism villages and rural tourism operators, create multi-themed rural residential experiences and launch a batch of "slow life" residential wellness villages. Build public spaces such as rural cafes, rural studies, and pastoral tea rooms that suit the aesthetic and social needs of residential visitors. Encourage the promotion of the "whole-village operation" development model to form a win-win operational ecosystem for enterprises, village collectives, and farmers (led by the Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism and Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs according to their responsibilities).
- Building residential wellness clustered communities: Mainly through revitalizing existing resources, cultivate a batch of "small but beautiful" residential wellness clustered communities with complete functions and distinctive features according to local conditions. Support the development of wellness core attractions from state-owned idle assets, urban inefficient buildings and factories, unsold commercial housing, forest wellness bases, forestry hotels, and employee recuperation bases, enhancing overall residential carrying capacity (the source text is cut off at this point, but the plan continues).
For foreign founders, this plan signals potential opportunities in developing and operating residential wellness facilities, providing services such as health management, multilingual reception, and integrated wellness experiences. However, specific regulations on foreign investment in these areas should be verified with local authorities. The plan emphasizes internationalization and high-end services, which may create niches for foreign expertise in wellness, hospitality, and senior care.
This summary is based on information published by the relevant Chinese government website and is general information, not legal or tax advice.