As a top-ranking hospital in Western China, Huaxi (which means West China in Chinese) Hospital of Sichuan University (Huaxi Hospital) had been navigating a digital transformation journey. In the early phases, Huaxi Hospital focused on the development of setting up a digital foundation. Specifically, it created the relevant supporting departments and built eighteen digitalized systems. In 2013, when Weimin Li became president of Huaxi Hospital, he prompted the expansion of digitalization. Telemedicine services, hospital services using smart technologies, and online hospital services represented examples of the digital innovation adopted. More recently, the COVID-19 epidemic further accelerated the process of hospital digitalization, and Huaxi Hospital continued to advance and keep up with the rapid changes. Artificial intelligence-assisted diagnosis and big-data platforms were implemented during this later phase. However, despite its success and facing an increasingly turbulent and complex health care industry, Huaxi Hospital needed to continually explore future digital transformation strategies. What could the future of Huaxi Hospital look like in the digital age? How should the hospital prioritize its different initiatives plans and design a road map for its future digitalization?
Huanglongxi, a historic town in Sichuan Province, topped the list of “China’s Iconic Cultural Tourism Towns 2020.” In October 2017, Zhang Dafan, the executive director of the Huanglongxi Overseas Chinese Town Group (OCT), had led his team in initiating a smart cultural tourism project in Huanglongxi against the backdrop red-hot rivalry between China’s ancient towns. In just three years, the project had led to the remarkable transformation of Huanglongxi into a smart, award-winning ancient town. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic had left the tourism industry in limbo. To emerge from these difficult times caused by the pandemic, Huanglongxi the OCT had to assess how to strengthen the depth and breadth of its Huanglongxi’s smart cultural tourism construction offer in order to bring draw travellers back. How had Huanglongxi overcome the homogeneous competition it faced to develop into a unique, smart ancient town in 2017? Given the new challenges it faced, how could it do so once again?
The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding (Panda Base), located in Chengdu, China, was the world’s most popular scenic spot for giant panda tourism. Panda Base was founded in 1987 with a mission that included the protection and breeding of the endangered giant panda, scientific research, public education, and cultural tourism. In 2002, the director of Panda Base began to build panda culture and the panda brand in an effort to resolve low brand awareness and to better protect the giant panda. In 2020, Panda Base promoted the giant panda on various digital media platforms. Based on the concept of Web 3.0, Panda Base integrated the theories of social media marketing, content marketing, and viral marketing to promote panda culture and brand value, and successfully developed its core cultural brand value: "Tell the most touching story of the giant panda." Looking to the future, Panda Base’s director wanted to develop a smart tourism project to continue protecting giant pandas and increasing their population with the help of 5G (fifth-generation) technology, while providing tourists with an immersive experience. How can the director best use technology to support and promote Panda Base?