This city in northwest China's Gansu Province is taking advantage of the low tourist season to take steps to protect the Mogao Grottoes, one of the nation's world heritage sites.

The city is currently drafting a new strategy to better serve tourists next year and is taking steps to protect local relics, according to the city government.

"The city recently passed its high tourist season, giving us ample opportunities to strengthen the protection of Buddha sculptures and frescoes in the 700 or so caves," said Luo Xingming, deputy Party secretary of Dunhuang.

Domestic and foreign experts are also looking at new protection methods and technology.

Between 1,000 and 2,000 tourists currently visit Dunhuang every day, compared with 4,000 during the high season.

The local government is taking advantage of this quiet period by working flat out to improve the protection of this site, awarded world heritage status in 1991 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

The current shooting of a TV documentary to mark the 60th anniversary of the Dunhuang Academy of China is an example of this.

The documentary will also feature caves in the northern area of the grottoes, which are not normally open to the public.

Caves

The city only opens 40 caves out of the almost 700 on a shift basis.

Each tourist is only currently allowed to visit 10 of the 40 caves.

A total of 580,000 tourists visited the caves last year, and more are expected to come in 2005.

(China Daily October 25, 2004)