Huai'an City promotes the deep integration of intangible cultural heritage with culture and tourism, emphasizing "immersive, scenario-based, and diversified" experiences, so that intangible cultural heritage can be integrated into modern life.

The 2025 Grand Canal City Intangible Cultural Heritage Tourism Festival was successfully held, in which 75 activities were organized across four major sections. The Intangible Heritage Bazaar attracted 110 exhibiting projects from 8 provinces and municipalities along the Grand Canal, with nearly 100,000 visitors coming to view and purchase items. It also boosted the sales of participating companies and businesses in commerce and cultural tourism along the Grand Canal to nearly RMB 20 million.

Huai'an meticulously organized key events such as "Enjoying Intangible Cultural Heritage Along the Grand Canal in Jiangsu" Huai'an Station and "Spring Dawn in Ancient Towns: Revitalizing Intangible Cultural Heritage" Lifestyle Event, promoting the better integration of intangible cultural heritage into people's lives and facilitating the transformation from "fingertip skills" into "fingertip economy."

The inheritance system continues to be deepened. Significant progress has been made in building a team of inheritors, with Zhang Yuzhen (Jinhu yangko dance) being publicly included in the sixth batch of national-level representative inheritors of intangible cultural heritage. Workshop construction has been recognized, and the Yushan Tea Intangible Cultural Heritage Workshop in Xuyi County has been successfully included in the second batch of provincial-level intangible cultural heritage workshops.

Significant progress has been made in innovation and integration. "The Legacy of the Grand Canal, the Ingenuity of Craftsmen Weaving Dreams: A New Experience of the Coexistence of Intangible Cultural Heritage and Cultural Tourism in the Four Seasons of Hexia Ancient Town" was selected as an outstanding case of intangible cultural heritage entering scenic spots in the province without spacial restrictions; a cooperation agreement on "Intangible Cultural Heritage Entering Campus" was signed with Huaiyin Institute of Technology to enhance young students' understanding and recognition of traditional culture.

The funding guarantee is precise and effective. Huai'an has ensured that RMB 1.09 million of national-level intangible cultural heritage funds and RMB 378,000 of provincial-level intangible cultural heritage subsidies were accurately and promptly allocated, effectively supporting the protection, inheritance, and sustainable development of grassroots intangible cultural heritage projects such as the Qing Tribute meatball making technique and Jinhu paper-cutting.