The city of Zhangjiakou has seen 11.31 million tourists come through the first half of this year, for a rise of 35.3 percent year-on-year, and bringing in about 7.6 billion yuan ($1.24 billion), for a growth of 50.7 percent compared with the same last year period.
Statistics put Zhangjiakou in the top spot among Hebei province's cities in number of tourists and tourist revenues. This rapid tourism growth is the result of its tourism resource promotion and better infrastructure, with the government emphasizing tourist site improvements.
The government wants to get the tourist business to develop more rapidly and, this year, has puts advertisements on more than 60 large signs along Beijing-Tibet Expressway and Zhangjiakou-Shijiazhuang Expressway to promote its best sites. There is also a video of Zhangjiakou being broadcasted on CCTV to project the city's image. It has developed many tourist products as well to attract more people, for example, a tourist route from Zhangjiakou to Baoding, then on to Shijiazhuang. The government has seen the importance of having a city brands to get attention from China and abroad and its promotions have had an effect in making more tourists more aware of it.
In addition to the promotions, it has made an effort to improve the quality of its tourist business, and has begun work on 94 tourist projects, with total spending at 2.32 billion yuan. Li Zhengpu, the head of the city's tourism administration, has said that they will continue work on the airport and setting up a travel group in the latter half of this year and will make full use of various festivals to attract people and projects and open up new markets. |
