At the Municipal Tourism Work Conference, Kong Lei, Director of the Municipal Tourism Bureau said that in 2016, the side-structural reform of the tourism supply will be the key point for the Yichang’s tourism industry and global travel will be an important breakthrough of tourism reform and development in the new period. With the goal of constructing a hundreds of billion RMB tourism industry of the city, Yangtze River Three Gorges international tourist destination, destinations for relaxation and vacation with local characteristics and hot rural tourism destination in western Hubei will be set up with upgraded model, improved quality and efficiency, thus bringing a good beginning to the 13th “five-year” plan in the tourism sector. A number of 52,000,000 overseas tourists will be received in the while year, which will bring a gross tourism revenue of 9.24 billion dollars.
This year we will continue to accelerate the work of the "entrepreneurship and innovation", push forward the development of a national model city of tourism standardization and make sure to pass the examination of the National Tourism Administration. We will also accelerate the building of the Three Gorges National Tourist Resort of national level with the Three Gorges Tourism District as the main part.
Efforts will be made to construct three models of tourism focusing on relaxation and vacation:
First, the Yangtze River Three Gorges International Tourist Destination at the international level will be built. We will set up the "China International Tourist Destination with Water Conservancy Project Characteristic" to strengthen the core role of Yichang Three Gorges International Tourist Destination. The Six key construction international tourist areas to be set up respectively are: two dams and a gorge, Yichang urban area, Qingjiang scenic spot, the hometown of Qu Yuan, Wang Zhaojun Village and Guan Gong Park.
Second, destinations for relaxation and vacation with local characteristics at the national level will be built. We will focus on three kinds of leisure products: landscape resort, urban resort and countryside resort and concentrate on resort facilities such as resort hotel, boutique hotel and the theme guesthouse, etc., which will provide five kinds of leisure experience, namely health keeping, sports, culture and entertainment, ecological leisure and farming experience, thus building the destinations for relaxation and vacation with local characteristics at national level. The four domestic tourist resorts to be built are: Xiling Resort, Qingjiang Ecological Resort, Bai Lihuang Resort, and Wufeng Ecological Resort.
Third, rural tourism spots in western Hubei Province at the regional level will be built. With making full use of rural tourist resources, encouraging traveling with family members, self-drive travel and other tourist styles, 7 key tourism spots with rural characteristics will be constructed, which are respectively situated in Yuanan town, Xingshan town, longquan town, Anfusi town, Xiaofeng village Xialaoxi village and Chexi Folk Scenic Spot. The tourist fast food services and many reception facilities with distinct local features are rapidly developed, such as star agritourism sites, rural hotels, theme guesthouses, recreational granges and non-standard hotels. Nearly 10 resorts with rural characteristics are under plan hoping to attract 100,000 tourists to have weekend rural visits and 20,000 tourists to stay there for weekends each week.
We will create new tourist brands. A serial of tourist destinations is to be applied for China Research and Study Tourist Destination, Demonstration District of Ecologic Tourism, Green Tourism Demonstration Base, Cultural Tourism Demonstration Base and Health Tourism Brand. The main body of “two dams and one gorge”, tied with the Three Gorges Dam, Tribes of Three Gorges, Xiling Gorge, will be further developed to strive for the title of “China Top Ten Scenic Spots”, leading the construction of Yangtze River scenic belt.
We will set up “tourism plus” platform to enhance the integration of tourism industry and the tertiary industry in aspects of resources, production and service and give emphasis to the construction of new operational types of tourism including tourism agriculture, tourism industry, tourism culture, tourism commerce, tourism sports, tourism retirement, tourism forestry and tourism education.
We will innovate the types of tourism to improve the quality of rural tourism and expand the contribution portion regarding poverty alleviation of rural tourism. With the implementation of poverty alleviation by tourism and overall popularization of “Magnificent Three Gorges and Poetic Yichang” destination, we will boost up the tourism brand of “Fall in Love with Yichang”.
We will reform the restrooms in scenic spots by scattering the restrooms to leisure blocks, scenery corridors, arterial highways and rural tourism spots instead of only providing in tourism spots, business center and urban parks.
We will accelerate the construction of Yichang into an “intelligent city”, push forward the complete WIFI coverage in scenic areas, and build 14 ecologic sight-viewing corridors in regional tourism destinations and 2 recreational greenways in urban area. (Reporters: Zhang Yuangang and Zhen Yunli, Correspondents: Zhang Wei and Fan Ruiqing)