The top 10 tourist cities in Zhejiang province were announced at the Expo Tourism (Zhejiang) Forum in Shanghai on Friday, the opening day of Zhejiang Week at the Expo.
The top 10 cities include Fenghua, Tiantai, Jiangshan, Suichang, Xinchang, Ninghai, Chun'an, Anji, Putuo and Yiwu.
The cities, which are already well-known tourist attractions, have different features, for instance, the bamboo forest in Anji where the movie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, was filmed, the huge forest and sea of clouds in Suichang where the renowned Kunqu Opera, the Peony Pavilion, was written and Mount Putuo, which is one of the four most sacred Buddhist mountains in China.
The 10 cities were voted for by 2.6 million readers and netizens of the newspaper Zhejiang Daily, the host of the forum and the province's leading newspaper.
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"We hope that the picturesque landscapes and high-quality of life in Zhejiang will be known not only in China, but also in the world after the 2010 Expo," said Wei Xiao'an, head of the academic committee of China's Tourism Academy.
He added that the mild weather, cultural heritage and rapid urban development has made Zhejiang a high-end tourist attraction and the province's next step is to attract more visitors from all over the world.
Zhejiang has 18 national-level scenic spots, the most in the country, 41 provincial-level scenic spots and hundreds of tourist hotspots, which attracted nearly 250 million tourists from home and abroad in 2009, generating total tourism income of 26.44 billion yuan, representing 17.5 percent year-on-year growth.
The names of Zhejiang's top 10 famous teas and top 15 special local products were also announced at the forum.
