Economy

Scenic sites discount tickets for inaugural National Tourism Day

(China Daily)
Updated: 2011-05-18 14:04

BEIJING - Free and discounted tickets for many of China's most popular tourist attractions are being offered to promote the country's first National Tourism Day on Thursday.

Tourists will be able to get half-price tickets for all the scenic spots in North China's Shanxi province, according to the provincial tourism bureau.

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While in the island province of Hainan, free tickets and discount coupons will be distributed around the island's west coast, and all tourists taking public transport from Thursday to Saturday will get half-price tickets for the Li and Miao ethnic groups' cultural tourism zone.

Libraries, museums and stadiums in the county of Qionghai will be open to local residents free of charge for one week.

Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Academy, said National Tourism Day was established to stimulate the public's desire to travel and to promote tourism in the country.

The date was chosen to commemorate the exact day when writer Xu Xiake began writing his masterpiece Travel Notes of Xu Xiake, which charts his 30 years of travels throughout the country during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

Dozens of tourists in driving clubs started trips along Xu's route on Tuesday morning.

But for safety reasons, tourists will not be allowed to drive private cars onto Tiantai Mountain in Zhejiang province, where Xu started his journey about 400 years ago. Instead, the local government has arranged 80 buses and temporary parking lots to receive tourists on that day.

Meanwhile, other activities, like photo exhibitions, will be held in many of China's scenic spots.

Xinhua