As the Chinese New Year draws near, tourist destinations and tourism businesses across China are gearing up to welcome an influx of holiday-makers with a range of preferential policies and enhanced services.
The Spring Festival holiday, set from February 10 to 17, is traditionally a lucrative period for the tourism industry. This year, scenic spots in over a dozen provincial-level regions have introduced enticing ticket discounts or even free access to attract both domestic and international visitors.
These regions span from the ice-and-snow tourist hotspot Heilongjiang to the sunny island of Hainan, and from coastal Fujian to the vast inland expanse of Xinjiang.
In the southwestern province of Sichuan, several initiatives, such as \"buy one, get one free\" offers for entry to state-owned tourist attractions rated 4A and above, have been implemented until the end of March in Aba, Ganzi, and Liangshan – all autonomous prefectures with significant ethnic minority populations – as well as the city of Panzhihua.
Additionally, free admission is being offered in these areas for state-owned scenic spots rated below 4A, the second-highest rating in China's five-level assessment system for scenic areas.
In east China's Jiangsu, culture and tourism authorities have rolled out a series of initiatives for the eight-day holiday aimed at benefiting both locals and tourists. These include the normal operations of museums, galleries, libraries, and other public cultural facilities, as well as free-of-charge policies at prominent tourist attractions such as the Humble Administrator's Garden, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Collective efforts to devise tourist incentives for the Spring Festival holiday are poised to create synergy and boost the tourism economy within each locality while fostering coordinated development across the regions, said Wang Peng, a deputy researcher with the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences.
Reference(s):
Businesses gear up for upcoming Chinese New Year holiday season
cgtn.com
