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The 10th Yangtze River Three Gorges Int'l Tourism Festival opens
By Zhou Lihua and Jiang Hongyuan (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-09-28 11:53

The 10th Yangtze River Three Gorges International Tourism Festival opened Saturday in Yichang of central China's Hubei Province. The Three Gorges Dam Project is one of the great wonders of modern human history and it has become a tourist hot spot of the world. Millions of visitors from across the world will gather here to witness this great man-made project and enjoy the beautiful scenery.

Yichang is the nearest city to the site of the world's biggest water control project -- the Three Gorges Dam Project at the middle reaches of the Yangtze, and is also Hubei’s associate key cities, as well as the star city of West Hubei Eco-cultural Tourism Circle, which won warm support from the government.

Man Hongwei, general-secretary of Cross-Straits Tourism Exchange Association, told China Daily yesterday that with the construction of the Three Gorges Dam Project, Yichang will experience a tourism windfall, as tourists from across the world rush there, spending millions of dollars on hotel accommodations, restaurants and transportation.

“We will create a new image of Three Gorges that have a worldwide reputation for tourism. The aim of the International Tourism Festival is to raise the city’s name recognition and thus promote it to be a world famous hydropower city”, Man said.

The festival, which is jointly hosted by the China National Tourism Administration and the Hubei Provincial People's Government, aims to highlight Yichang's splendid ancient cultural and archeological legacies, as well as its advanced modern water conservancy achievements to the visitors. It began in 2000 and usually come in late September; themes this year are “New Three Gorges, New Image, New tourism” and “Golden Gorge, Silver Gorge and Green Gorge”.

With Yangtze River Three Gorges and the Three Gorges Dam as the leading role, Yichang speed up the development of “Two dam, one gorge” resort area by integrating regional tourism resources and giving policy support. There are also numerous natural reserves in or around the city, including Chaibuxi National Forest Park and Houhe Natural Reserve. As an ancient city, Yichang is the site of some important historical relics such as Qu Yuan Hometown, Zhaojun Residence and Ancient Battle Relics of Three Kingdom Period, all of which will be parts of the 6 shining points of the “1+6” tourism product pattern.

Official says that Yichang could see a tourist boom with 18 million visitors from home and overseas in 2012 and the tourism revenues expected to rise to RMB18 billion , which will contributed 9% to GDP of Yichang city, and equivalent to 30 percent of the revenue of West Hubei Eco-cultural Tourism Circle.