No more usual crowds of people. Tranquillity has returned to Jiuzhaigou, a well-known scenic site in Southwest China's Sichuan Province, where now only limited numbers of tourists indulge themselves in the miracle of nature.

The change has been brought along by a program called "Digital Jiuzhaigou" that has been put into formal operation since this year's May 1 holiday season.

Feng Gang, deputy director of the Administration for the Jiuzhaigou Scenic Zone, said the Digital Jiuzhaigou program, which will cost more than 100 million yuan (US$12 million), was conceived to better protect this unique landscape from damage caused by unlimited tourism development activities.

The Digital Jiuzhaigou program includes a digital project for protection of natural resources inside Jiuzhaigou Valley, computerized management such as online ticket booking, environmental monitoring, as well as an online project for co-coordinating different sectors, said Feng.

As part of Digital Jiuzhaigou, 60 video cameras have been installed at major spots of Jiuzhaigou Valley so that it will be convenient for the administrators to control the flow of tourists among different scenic spots in the area.

May 2 was cited as an example to showcase the effects of the new system. At 2 pm that day, there were only 40 to 50 or so tourists at Wuhuahai, a key scenic spot inside Jiuzhaigou Valley. The number was quite small, thanks to the flow control, compared with the normal tourist crowds whose number normally stands at 200 or more at the same time in the past.

Online ticketing is another feat of high-tech applications which not only helps administrative workers monitor sales of tickets each day, but also gives them convenience in stopping ticket selling once the daily number of tourists exceeds 28,000. That makes Jiuzhaigou Valley the first scenic site in China that has a daily ceiling on the number of tourists it can host.

The practice has been easily picked up by customers too, said Feng. According to him, 90 per cent of the tourists to Jiuzhaigou Valley during the May 1 peak travel season bought entrance tickets online.

"Via the Digital Jiuzhaigou program, we improve our work efficiency and thus reduce costs by 10 million yuan (US$1.2 million) which will in turn be used in environmental protection and scientific management of Jiuzhaigou Valley," said Feng.

The entire digital program will be finished by 2006, according to the official.

The main scenic area of Jiuzhaigou lies in Nanping County, the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in northern part of Sichuan Province. Heralded as a fairyland, Jiuzhaigou Valley is extremely attractive for a series of narrow conic karst land forms, large number of lakes and spectacular waterfalls.

It covers 643 square kilometers and has an elevation ranging from 2,000 meters to 4,760 meters above sea level.

One of the lakes, Wolonghai, or Lying Dragon Lake, has a calcareous dyke running through it clearly visible below the water surface, which, in local folklore, has been compared to a dragon lying at the bottom.

Legends abound concerning the existence of monsters in various lakes, notably Changhai (Long Lake), Jianzhuhai (Arrow Bamboo Lake) and Nuorilang Lake. The local ethnic Tibetan population maintain its cultural traditions.

(China Daily June 25, 2004)