More than 9.71 tourist trips were made in Hunan's ecological tourism industry during the just-concluded Spring Festival holiday, a year-on-year increase of 52.4%, according to the Hunan Provincial Department of Forestry on January 29. The tourism income reached more than 6.9 billion yuan.

Ecological tourism has picked up across Hunan Province during the Spring Festival holiday. Shaoshan Scenic Area; Dongting Lake and Yueyang Tower Scenic Area; and, Fenghuang Ancient Town received 304,800, 317,900, 423,200 tourist arrivals respectively. Wulingyuan Scenic Area received 69,500 tourist arrivals on January 24, the third day of the first month in the Chinese lunar calendar, hitting a daily record high.

According to surveys, Hunan's ecological tourism, during the Spring Festival in previous years, was primarily based on inter-provincial self-drive tours and short-distance tours. This year homebound trips and cross-provincial self-drive tours dominated. A variety of novel activities were launched in ecological tourist areas across the province. Hengshan Mountain Scenic Area hosted a new year blessing event through short video platforms and staged a fireworks show to greet the Chinese New Year. Zhangjiajie held a hot spring tourism festival and offered free admission to limited tourists visiting Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, Baofeng Lake, and Huanglong Cave. The "Forest Family" located in Zhuzhou's Shennong Valley National Forest Park offered New Year's Eve dinners to enable tourists to experience the joy of travel and family reunion.  

This article is from the Hunan Provincial Government www.enghunan.gov.cn.

Translator: Xiao Juan

Chinese source: hunan.gov.cn