The jade tree branches out

A driver dips a bottle into a creek to pour water on his truck's overheating axle as he navigates Yushu's remote roads in 2014.

Driving progress

"Highways and railways to major scenic sites will be built, environmental-impact studies pending," says a Yushu tourism department public relations official, who'd only give his surname, An.

Plans call for linking Yushu to the high-speed rail system within five years, An says.

Flights connecting to the Tibet autonomous region's Lhasa, Sichuan province's Kangding county and Yunnan province's Shangri-la will begin within three years to expand tourism, Xinhua News Agency reports.

Low-altitude air routes, covering such scenic spots as the origins of the Yellow and Lantsang rivers, are also in the works, Xinhua quotes Liu Lizhi, director of the prefecture's culture-and tourism-integration development office, as saying. These are expected to chop travel times from between three and six hours to half an hour.

This comes as the city hopes to shepherd its economy away from herding and toward tourism. Husbandry generates little revenue despite intensive labor and has recently been restricted to curb desertification.

Much of the 100 million yuan ($16 million) the central government earmarked for Yushu's development during the 2011-14 period has been used to restore scenic sites and roads damaged in the disaster, says an official surnamed Zhao, with the Qinghai tourism bureau's planning and development department.

The provincial government last year announced plans to disburse 10 million yuan annually from the local tourism fund to build toilets and parking lots, and stage festivals, Zhao says. The money will also pay for personnel training and museum construction.

A tourism-service center will be completed this year to assist travelers and employ locals, she says.

About 120,000 visitors arrived in Yushu in the first half of this year, a 30 percent increase over the same period in 2014. Revenue increased 16 percent to 60 million yuan, An says.

Yushu's tourism department ambitiously aspires to this year lure 480,000 tourists, whom they hope will generate 200 million yuan, An says.

Taxi driver Xiao Mei says he moved to Yushu from his native Sichuan's capital, Chengdu, to cash in on the tourism boom.

"The only work here was husbandry and harvesting caterpillar fungus," he says.

"Tourism has brought more jobs. Like mine."