Lianghekou village in Xuan'en county, Central China's Hubei province, is a traditional village inhabited by the Tujia ethnic group. It has in recent years been seeing thriving culture and tourism industries.

From April to May 2019, more than 40 teachers and students from architecture schools of four universities, including Southeast University in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, and Iuav University of Venice, conducted a research project on protection and renovation of the ancient stilted buildings in Lianghekou.

The project was aimed at boosting the integrated development of the village's culture and tourism industries.

Zhang Tong, director of the School of Architecture of Southeast University and the project leader, said that through the use of multiple techniques, the team restored the look of the ancient stilted buildings and turned Lianghekou into a model village with regional and ethnic characteristics and historical value.

The Chinese Visual Image Research Center of Southeast University also built a cultural park in 2020 to promote local traditional culture.

Southeast University and the Xuan'en county government have also established the China-Italy International Research Camp to popularize Tujia culture in cooperation with intangible cultural heritage inheritors. The camp is located at the China Tujia Pan-museum in the Pengjia Stockade Village Tourist Attraction.

To date, more than 12,000 students from domestic and overseas schools have participated in the camp, where they learned about local folk dances, assembling of models of stilted buildings and making of insect specimens.

As a result of these efforts, 4.72 million tourists visited Xuan'en county in 2021 and generated 2.2 billion yuan ($321.4 million) in tourism revenue, up 88.4 percent and 81.4 percent year-on-year respectively.

An increasing number of villagers have also started their own businesses such as restaurants, hotels and artisan workshops. As of June 2022, the Pengjia Stockade Village Tourist Attraction in Lianghekou attracted 370 million yuan in investment. This has in turn helped create more than 20,000 jobs.