The country is stepping up efforts to regulate tourist services in
the picturesque Three Gorges area along the Yangtze River to ensure
its sustainable development.
Sources with the China National Tourism Administration said that
the administration, in collaboration with the Office of Three
Gorges' Affairs at the State Council, is mapping out a programme to
fine tune the development of tourism in the Three Gorges area,
which includes parts of central China's Hunan and Hubei provinces
as well as parts of Guizhou Province and Chongqing Municipality in
Southwest China.
Wang Liming, an official in charge of the programme with the
administration, said such a programme aims to provide an outline
for the future development of tourist services in local areas in
the wake of the completion of the Three Gorges Project.
The project, the largest hydroelectric power project in the world,
is scheduled to be completed in 2009.
"A
new spectacular scenery in the Three Gorges area will emerge after
the second-phase project is completed next year, when the Three
Gorges Reservoir begins storing water and the first group of power
units become operational," the official said.
"Accordingly, new tourist routes should be developed, new
infrastructural construction should be increased and the
development of tourism should be adjusted."
Wang stressed that the programme will highlight local resources so
that the duplication of construction would be avoided.
The unique scenes in the Three Gorges area are featured by high,
steep and spectacular mountains that attract large crowds of
tourists from home and abroad each year.
The Urban Planning and Design Center at Peking University is mainly
responsible for drawing up the programme after winning a
competitive bidding process.
Lu
Bin, director of the center, described the programme as an arduous
task due to the complicated number of factors it involves.
"The healthy growth of the local tourism and the sustainable
development of the ecology, as well as ways to make a living for
migrant people in local areas have all been taken into account in
the programme," Lu told China Daily.
The three priorities of the programme include a marketing plan for
local tourism, the inter-provincial co-ordination in the
development of tourist resources and the planning for tourist
cruise boats, Lu said.
He
stressed that the establishment of a co-coordinating network is of
great importance since the Three Gorges area involves three
provinces and one municipality.
(
China
Daily August 21, 2002)