Tour guide gives his clients a different perspective as he broadens their minds, Yang Feiyue reports.

Zhu at a tulou, a typical residential compound built between the 15th and 20th centuries in Fujian province. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Zhu Ming has a way of drawing people's attention and having them spontaneously lean in and listen to what he has to say.

This talent has made the Zhejiang-based tour guide an internet sensation in recent years.

I hope in people’s eyes, I’m still a happiness conveyor who can talk nonstop about scenic spots and culture enthusiastically and humorously.

Zhu Ming, tourist guide and influencer

Zhu's charm has been proved by his more than 10 million followers on short-video platforms, such as Douyin and Kuaishou. Most of his fans claim they have been swept off their feet by the fun-filled but educational journeys Zhu takes them on.

"What's underneath the People's Liberation Monument in Chongqing?""What's worth exploring apart from kung fu at Shaolin Temple in Central China's Henan province?" "How difficult was the nine-day ancient imperial examination and how did the test takers manage to eat and sleep in a cramped test space in the interim?"

With those intriguing questions, Zhu has never failed to hook in his audiences before he delivers fact-based explanations.

In his mid-40s, Zhu can talk up a storm on lesser-known yet fascinating aspects about a far-flung destination and give his guests a good run for their money.

His interpretation has turned a photo studio at the Hengdian World Studios in Zhejiang's Jinhua city into a mine of stories, with such details as how its owner can afford an eye-watering rent of 10 million yuan ($1.5 million) and still manage to make a profit.

More than two decades of working in the forefront of the tourism industry has given Zhu a knack to approach culture and history of the country's vast land from interesting angles that keep his audience on the edge of their seats.

Zhu started uploading short videos featuring the highlights of his tours on Douyin in 2019.

"It was purely an experiment out of curiosity, and I didn't expect it would be a big deal," says Zhu, who had already been something of a local renowned guide.

Tourist guide Zhu Ming promotes the Detian Waterfall in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

The main reason for his online endeavor was that he wanted to change public stereotypes about tour guides. Zhu had often asked his guests about their understanding of a good tour guide.

"Many of them told me those who didn't force them to go shopping during the trips should be good enough," he recalls.

"It was disappointing, because it meant travelers had very low expectations and some tour guides had not been giving a good impression."

He hopes he can do something to redress the image.

In one of his tours in Hangzhou, the provincial capital of Zhejiang province, in 2021, Zhu explained the ebb and flow of ancient towns' tourism development spanning two decades.

His delivery was filled with exciting anecdotes and revealed fascinating truths that led to different popular features among those towns.

When Zhu uploaded the clip on Douyin, it took the virtual world by storm.

The 12-minute video drew in more than 68 million views.

Netizens waxed lyrical about Zhu's erudition and talents and said they couldn't wait to book his tours.

The initial videos were mostly filmed by his clients during tours. They featured his lively explanations and humorous interactions and reflected his firm grasp of local culture and history.

Zhu highlights a poverty alleviation campaign in Litang county, Sichuan province. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Wearing a pair of black-framed glasses and a traditional Chinese costume, Zhu presents himself as an amicable next-door uncle.

He knows how to pique curiosity toward things often taken for granted and spontaneously shares his feelings without reservation with his clients like they are family or friends.

Those qualities have helped endear him to his fans online.

But Zhu believes the root reason is that Chinese travelers increasingly put a premium on quality tour service.

"I figured the foundation of my popularity lies in the public's desire for traditional cultural knowledge," Zhu says, adding that he just stays true to himself in the videos, like he does with his guests on a real tour.

"I dumb down major knowledge points, sort them out before weaving them in the tour explanations, and then I throw in a few punchlines here and there," he says.

Zhu applied for trade license as a tour guide in 2000, when he was discharged from military service and returned to his hometown Wuzhen in Zhejiang province.

"Tourism development was in full swing then," he recalls.

That was when he thought he could tap into his gift of the gab.

"I had practiced stand-up comedy at school and managed to crack people up," he says.

Therefore, he opted for the tour guide certification test and managed to become a professional guide in Wuzhen later that year.

At the beginning of his career as a tour guide, Zhu says he stealthily went over the guidance scripts from all of his colleagues, just to make sure he was fully prepared.

His first group of guests were 40 experienced tour guides from other regions.

"I felt like I had to give them a tour that was different from before," he says.

Zhu Ming (third from left) with visitors to Daocheng Yading, a popular tourist destination in the Garze Tibetan autonomous prefecture, Sichuan province. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

He managed to do that after reading up on local history and culture books and compiled them into his own explanation.

This initial experience has since had Zhu develop the habit of reading.

"I'll read on my phone whenever I'm free," he says.

In his opinion, a tour guide worth their salt should know a lot more than just the official introduction of a destination.

"You need to listen to your guests, and get to know their preferences before leading them in with anecdotes to their taste," he says.

Sun Yanlan has known Zhu for 15 years from the time when she was also a tour guide. Now, she helps to take care of Zhu's tour business operations.

She says she is impressed by how he could always come up with good answers to all the miscellaneous questions thrown at him by travelers.

"He can explain the complex issues in simple terms, which has been very popular among his clients," says Sun.

She had long noticed Zhu's flair for public performance.

"I noticed him when he was a blogger at a tourism forum and he stunned me by pulling off a tour guide practice training meeting on his own that ended up gathering more than 2,000 people," Sun recalls.

"He loves interacting with people, and learning and getting to the bottom of things," she says.

Zhu won first prize at the Zhejiang provincial tour guide competition in 2004 and was named a "golden guide "in Hangzhou multiple times in the following years.

He has thus been accredited a special talent by the Hangzhou authorities.

When asked if he is tired after being in the business this long, Zhu says he still enjoys it very much.

"It gives me a sense of fulfillment, and is fun," he says, adding that no matter how many times he has gone to a place, he always meets different travelers.

"Every tourist is an interesting being, and every one of them can teach you something interesting," he says.

Zhu makes a tourism video in Chongqing. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

For Zhu, the excitement about being a tour guide is the unknown, and the job is anything but repetitive.

Despite his online popularity, Zhu insists on taking guests on tours.

"I hope in people's eyes, I'm still a happiness conveyor who can talk nonstop about scenic spots and culture enthusiastically and humorously," Zhu says.

The swift rise to fame online has also woken Zhu to a new direction in his career, especially during the past three years when the industry bore the brunt of pandemic controls.

Many of his followers posted thankyou messages to him for enriching their lives through showing the country online, so they can have more options when making future travel decisions.

More importantly, he found his works have also helped introduce travelers to struggling scenic spots and tourism business operators, especially during the pandemic.

A tulip scenic spot in Jiangsu's Yancheng saw its business turnover increase by more than 30 percent in 2021 after Zhu's introduction.

A small restaurant hidden in a narrow lane in Hangzhou saw its lackluster business boom and expand in the same year after Zhu recommended its gourmet food.

Seeing those changes he could bring about, he has since made a point of uploading one or two videos a day.

As a result, his followers have grown exponentially.

Most of his diehard fans are men between 30 and 50 whose interest in politics, economy and history are tackled by Zhu's videos.

In addition to reaching a bigger audience and boosting business, Zhu says a major reason for him to insist on maintaining the online presence is to breathe some positive changes into his trade.

"It's important to build confidence in my line of work," Zhu says.

He believes it is more important to encourage future tourism players to stay the course.

When his fans reached 300,000 in 2019, he started to share stories of his initial success with other tour guides.

Over the past three years, many young tour guides have switched their careers to delivery, car-hailing services, insurance and other odd jobs.

"I believe they're waiting for the recovery of tourism," Zhu says.

He hopes he can be of some help to people in the industry by showing them how to create opportunities in crisis and how to gain attention through good tourism service.

"More young people are likely to join the field if they see me doing well online," Zhu says.

Contact the writer at yangfeiyue@chinadaily.com.cn