Technology has become an important driving force in high-quality tourism development. Macroscopically, this study discusses the present situation and tasks of technological innovation in China’s tourism industry and the important areas of technology-enabled high-quality tourism development. At the meso level, this study analyzes the practical paths and research issues of digital technology-empowered tourist destinations. At the micro level, this study discusses the impact of digital visual technology and various digital technologies on the tourist experience and their application in tourist locations such as museums. This study draws the following conclusions: (1) China should carry out demand-oriented technological innovation in the field of tourism, improve the quality of tourist services, upgrade elements of tourist enterprises, modernize the governance skills of mass tourism in various destinations, and form a green development capacity for the sustainable use of resources so that technology will comprehensively empower high-quality tourism development. (2) AI technology empowers high-quality tourism development, especially in shaping a more coordinated and greener tourism development model. (3) The practice of applying digital technology to promote the high-quality development of tourist destinations has given rise to issues worthy of study, such as the “liquid interaction” between destinations and tourists, value co-creation by multiple participants, and the construction of digital ecology and digital competitiveness. (4) Innovation in tourist experience products and services empowered by digital visual technology can help China upgrade and develop its tourist industry in the direction of service innovation, product technology, and brand uniqueness. (5) Digital technology reshapes the forms of museums, enriches the content and methods of museum exhibitions, enhances visitors’ immersive experiences and edutainment, and helps create more diverse communication channels.

Most of the existing research on tourism big data in China has focused on identifying and analyzing specific problems in the tourism industry and lacks a critical evaluation of contemporary, state-of-the-art studies on big data in tourism. This paper examines empirical studies of big data in tourism that have been published in the Chinese language, reviewing 358 journal papers published in prestigious Chinese academic publications on tourism as of January 2021. In these studies, three types of big data are used: UGC data, device data, and transaction data. Under each data type, in-depth investigations of the study’s goals, data features, and analytical approaches are undertaken. While tourism big data research in China has taken significant strides in study topics, data collection, and analytic methods, the distribution of research on various forms of data is as yet uneven. There is, therefore, room for improvement in study topics, data collection methods, and analysis approaches.