Xinjiang improves travel services to boost tourism

URUMQI - Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region has started to improve travel services to boost tourism after the sector was hit hard last year as a result of terrorist attacks.

Xinjiang received about 7.2 million domestic tourists in the first quarter of 2015, a year-on-year increase of 9.29 percent, according to data released by the regional tourism bureau at the end of April.

Boasting more than 1,100 tourist attractions, Xinjiang is a favorite destination for Chinese travelers. However, due to a string of terrorist attacks last year, the number of tourist arrivals in Xinjiang declined in 2014.

About 49.5 million tourists visited the region in 2014, falling 4.9 percent from the previous year.

To promote tourism in Xinjiang, the regional bureau launched a six-month campaign on May 22 to improve the region's travel services, including penalizing illegal hotels, travel agencies, and guides, standardizing signs in regional tourist service centers, parking lots, and scenic areas, and strengthening security checks at the region's scenic spots.

Travel times have been shortened in the region since Xinjiang's first high-speed rail line started operations in November 2014.

The regional tourism bureau and Urumqi Railway Bureau have jointly launched 16 railway tours, including a lavender viewing trip, a spring outing in the desert, and a mulberry picking tour from March to October. The tours are expected to attract more than 80,000 tourists in total.

Individual travel by car is also encouraged in the region. Kanas Lake in the far north of the region opened to independent travellers in May.

China plans to build Xinjiang into a major tourism hub along the Silk Road Economic Belt, a China-proposed initiative to boost cooperation with Central, South and West Asian countries.

Xinjiang has set a target to receive 55 million tourists and earn more than 100 billion yuan in tourism revenue in 2015.

Ynam Naserden, head of the regional tourism bureau, said Xinjiang is striving to promote tourism this year through the "Beautiful China, 2015 Year of Silk Road Tourism" campaign launched by China National Tourism Administration to attract tourists to scenic spots along the Silk Road Economic Belt.