During the New Year’s Day, it was suitable for traveling around owing to the comfortable weather. Yesterday, the reporter was informed from the Municipal Tourism Bureau Holiday Office that the three-day holiday witnessed 586,900 tourists abroad and at home. The tourism revenue hit 208 million yuan with an increase of 15.87% and 22.35% respectively compared to the same period of the previous year. Among them, the six major scenic spots accommodated 86,100 tourists with the tickets admission of 4,221,900 yuan.

Leisure Travel Stimulated by Innovative Activities

During the holiday a variety of promotion and cultural exhibition activities appealed to a lot of tourists and the natives as well. The “New Year Promotion” activities were held by International Trade Mall and Da Yang Department Store and for the promotion discounts. A host of people were flocking to the shopping malls, parks, blocks and the night markets to do shopping or for recreation.

From January 1st to 3th, the Yichang Arborvitae Exhibition and the First National Arborvitae Amateur Exchange Conference were held in the Yiling Museum, displaying more than 2,000 works of art from the arborvitae amateurs, arborvitae practitioners and arborvitae collectors, besides, the exhibited Three Gorges grotesque stones, Yiling engraving, Three Gorges embroidery, folk paper-cutting, stone carving, the Gen Shu Lao Hua (brand a drawing on the wood) and other craft works attracted 2,000 above people during these days.

Rustic Tour due to New Year’s Day

During the New Year’s Day, the nearby short-journey travel, family travel, self-service travel and driving travel are still popular this year. Lot of resorts and tourism enterprises planed various kinds of unique activities, attracting large number of tourists.

Zhijiang Dongfang Ninhua Leisure Agriculture and Industrial Park in An Fusi county launched “Fishing Festival” during the holiday. Meanwhile China Xia Zhou International Travel Agency organized nearly a thousand visitors to go fishing, visit the folks performances and do New Year purchases for the harvest pleasure experience. Gao Mahe manor in Xiaoting, Bai Yizhai village in Wufeng, Zheng Jia village in Changyang held ceremonies i.e. the ritual pig slaughtering activity for the Spring Festival. Thousands of tourists assembled to enjoy the Pig Slaughtering custom and the Pig Soul Praying practice (a practice to pray for happiness), more than 3,000 people of which were attracted to Gao Mahe manor and 5,000 people to Bai Yizhai, bringing about RMB500,000 tourism revenue.

Emerging media boost environment –friendly travel

About two weeks previous to the New Year’s Day, the official micro-blog of the municipal tourism bureau “Love in Yichang” released three holiday travel lines, which include Qingjiang Landscape Tourist Site - Qingjiang Fangshan- Zheng Jiabang village- Yan Chi springs, Xiling Gorge- Qu Yuan’s hometown- Three Gorges Household Tour Site, Wufeng Baiyizhai- Chexi Folk Custom Tourist Site- Wenfo Mountain blessing trip. The three tour routes attracted flocked people thanks to network spreading and popularization.

In addition, the official micro-blog “Love in Yichang” also advocated the environment-friendly trip and prevents those ten kinds of ill-mannered behaviors. The law enforcement unit of the municipal tourism bureau carried out the inspections to the Three Gorges Dam area, the Dedicated Roads and the Xiling Gorge tourist site for a satisfying environment. During the holiday, the tourism market is in order in that there were no security accidents and major complains from tourists.    ( Reporter Wang Ying ; Correspondent Yang Hua)