Special cultural and tourism planning has been issued by China for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA)

positioning a distinctive cultural bay area as a core development direction. Lingnan traditional handicrafts exist as unique regional cultural assets

and numerous craft workshops at present serve as vital carriers for the living inheritance of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) and differentiated tourism products. In recent years

domestic tourists' travel preferences have shifted drastically; superficial sightseeing tours are no longer mainstream. Young people and parent-child groups are generally willing to pay for hands-on crafting projects that offer a sense of ownership over self-made works

forming steady market demand for the integrated development of craft workshops and tourism. Based on field investigations of workshops across the Pearl River Delta and collation of industry questionnaires

this study identifies prominent practical obstacles hindering integrated craft and cultural tourism development in the GBA. First

Guangdong

Hong Kong

China and Macao

China operate under separate administrative systems

leading to fragmented handicraft resource management

a lack of unified development frameworks

insufficient cross-regional tourism linkages

and disconnection between modern tourist sources in Hong Kong

China and Macao

China and mainland traditional craftsmanship. Second

most workshops rely solely on finished product sales for revenue

with experience courses lacking originality and failing to meet contemporary tourists' aesthetic demands

resulting in single profit models with weak risk resistance. Third

senior artisans excel at craftsmanship yet lack capabilities in cultural tourism planning and online customer acquisition

while tourism practitioners possess limited knowledge of traditional crafts

creating a shortage of interdisciplinary talents. Fourth

digital operation tools remain underutilized; small-scale workshops barely implement online promotion or reservation systems. Taking Foshan ceramics workshops

Hong Kong

China original creative handicraft studios and Macanese Portuguese-style craft venues as field research cases

this study adopts three research methods: field interviews

tourist questionnaires and policy text analysis. It systematically sorts out the regional resource

market and industrial potential of craft cultural tourism

analyzes each development barrier

and proposes feasible solutions covering five dimensions: tiered product design

diversified revenue structures

cross-bay collaboration

digital operation and university-enterprise cooperation. Different from prior literature that only examines single cities without holistic regional generalization

this research provides practical references for the sustainable development of Lingnan handicrafts and the industrial upgrading of GBA cultural tourism.