On the afternoon of March 4, Yichang municipal government and CPC Committee convened a special meeting, at which participators listened to the report about Yichang Three Gorges Tourism Zone Master Plan and the construction process, worked out the related deployments and encouraged the whole city to construct the Zone. Huang Chuping, member of the CPC Standing Committee of Hubei Province and Secretary of the CPC Committee of Yichang City, advocated a down-to-earth working style and great courage in promoting the construction of the Zone at a high level and proposed to focus on creating a hundreds-of-billion level cultural tourism industry, fueling the modern megacity construction.

　　At the meeting, the Yichang Three Gorges Tourism Zone Master Plan, designed mainly by China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, got praised for its foresight, new concept and convenient implementation. But given the general strategy and plan of the construction of city clusters in the Three Gorges area, it needs to be revised and improved to fit well with the Yangtze River Three Gorges Scenic Spot Master Plan and Yichang Three Gorges Tourist Resort Master Plan. So the Zone can be developed better under the master plan. Moreover, the construction of the Zone in the past year gained recognition at the meeting, which laid a solid foundation for the following work.

　　Huang Chuping noted that the Zone, a main drive for the hundreds-of-billion level cultural tourism industry, was one of the four battlefields of modern megacities construction, so it is urgent to settle the top-level design, improve the institutional mechanisms, prioritize the good projects and strengthen the solid work. Besides, great endeavors should be made in building the Zone into a brand image displaying and innovation model district with tourism industry clusters and abundant travel services.

　　As Huang said, there were still a lot work to do with the mechanism of management, security and coordination at it. According to the successful experience of Yichang New District, a team made up by “professionals and competent personnel” is also a good try for this one. In order to tackle the financing problem, strides should be made in innovating the investment and financing institutional mechanisms and building a financing platform for market players. Meanwhile, the government should take advantages of good projects to boost development: invert the project schedule, establish a project supervision mechanism and run against time to promote the planning of the main tourist route surroundings. Based on the market demand, efforts should be given to planning and packaging a group of projects with attractiveness and good quality.

　　Huang also indicated that it was indispensible to cultivate a down-to-earth working style while building the Three Gorges Tourism New District in a creative and efficient manner. On one hand, the government officials should be open-minded, hardworking, innovative and active. On the other hand, the government and the enterprises should pool their efforts and adopted the product complementary strategy to build the Three Gorges Tourism New District which benefits all sides.

　　The meeting was hosted by Ma Xuming, Mayor of Yichang City and Deputy Secretary of the CPC Committee, with participants being some heads of the related departments directly under Yichang government and the municipal officials, including Wang Yu, Ma Xuejun, Mao Chuanqiang, Xiong Wei, and Wang Yinghua.　 (Reporter Liu Zirong)