Road trips enliven tourism in Northeast

"Self-driving tours will promote car sales, car rentals, vehicle insurance products and maintenance services. Such benefits to economy don't derive from traditional tourism. They can create more employment opportunities in such industries.

"It'd be useful if tourism and communication networks as well as infrastructural facilities are bolstered so as to provide adequate and accurate information in a timely way."

Neighboring Jilin province is gaining, too, according to the China Winter Tourism Development Report for 2017, which ranked the top Chinese cities and resorts in terms of their competitiveness in winter tourism.

A number of cities, resorts and events in Jilin were included in the top 10 lists, showing that the northeastern province has become one of the top winter tour destinations in the country.

In order to attract more self-driving tourists, authorities of some scenic spots have begun to offer various preferential policies.

Take Erhe Snow Town in Shulan city as an example. Famed for farm-based tourism, Erhe Snow Town, where snow falls for half a year and gets as deep as two meters, saw the number of photographers and visitors increase since 2012.

"From November 2016, in order to seize the opportunity provided by the rapid development of tourism, the municipal government began to develop the small village into a tourist resort," said Yan Xue, deputy director of construction. "More than 40 million yuan ($6.35 million) has been put into improving the conditions at villagers' houses for home-stays and building some new attractions."

A house made of 30,000 corn cobs in traditional and typical Northeast rural house style was constructed last year, offering tourists some experience of traditional life in Northeast China.

Last year, nearly 30,000 travelers from nearby cities and some other provinces had visited the village, generating a revenue of 800,000 yuan, which is quite significant for a place with only about 100 households.

"About 60 percent of the tourists choose to drive here and we provide free tickets and a free parking lot for them," said Yan. "At the same time, we pay much attention to price control and service quality supervision, which we believe will provide tourists a more wonderful experience here.

"It's expected that the village's income will reach 2 million yuan, 5 million yuan and 10 million yuan in the following three years respectively," she said with great confidence.