China says uses tourism to curb rural-urban drift
The Chinese Government is using tourism to curb the rural urban drift in many of the provinces in China, a Senior Tourist Guide of “San Shenghua” a Tourist Site in China, Ms Zeng Hua Ling, has said.
The Senior Tourist Guide who said this to newsmen from Africa and Asia when they visited some sites said most provinces in China including the “San Shenghua” Tourist in Sichuan Province were developing tourism attractions at the country side of China and using them as one of the means of curbing rural urban migration.
This, she explained, had helped to employ a lot of local people in the area thereby curbing rural urban migration and stressed that many people no longer drifted to the urban centres in search of non-existent jobs.
She said the “San Shenghua” site in the Sichuan Province, one of the Provinces in China last year raked in about 8,500 dollars in revenue from foreign tourists, adding that 7. 9 million tourists visited the site last year.
She said most of the tourists sites in China such as “San Shenghua, the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Olympic Venue” which hosted the Olympic games among others had very unique tourists facilities including lakes, flowers, cultural materials, horses, fish pounds, among other things.
“Apart from that, the tourist sites had standard facilities in the form of restaurants, and very natural serene atmosphere for relaxation where foreigners from Europe and other countries including the natives visit as tourists”
Ms Zeng Hua Ling said the “San Shenghua” tourist site which had been named after different names of flowers by the people in the community did not only sell the flowers but also rent their farmlands to people at a cost for farming, adding that produce of the farms were used in the restaurants.
She added that the government also ensured that people manning the hospitality industry in the tourist centres had training in catering and hotel management to provide quality services to tourists.
Ms Zhang Ling said local people in the community were employed and paid by the tourist centre to stop them from migrating to the cities.
The four-day visit by the Journalists to the tourists’ sites was made possible as part of the World Media Summit organized in Beijing forAfrican and Asian Journalists hosted by the Xinhua News Agency of China.
Source: GNA