This study examines how historical poetry heritage affects tourism demand when activated by contemporary cultural attention. We propose Poetry Attention-Adjusted Endowment (PAE), conceptualizing poetry heritage as a latent cultural asset whose economic relevance depends on time-varying societal attention. Using panel data for 337 Chinese cities from 2007 to 2019 and more than 1.1 million geolocated poems spanning Chinese history, we estimate two-way fixed-effects models of domestic and inbound tourism demand. PAE significantly increases domestic tourism arrivals and revenue and inbound tourist arrivals. An extended stability analysis using available data through 2024 provides partial evidence that the attention-activation mechanism persists in the post-pandemic period. The impact of poetry heritage declines over time, indicating diminishing cultural salience, and varies across dynasties, with stronger domestic tourism effects associated with the earliest and most recent periods. Overall, the findings highlight the dynamic and conditional economic role of poetry heritage in tourism development.