China's Stone Forest to Become an International Tourism Destination

From Kenny Teng Khoon Hock SHI LIN (CHINA), June 7 (Bernama) -- The Stone Forest Scenic Area, a world natural heritage site and global Geopark here in China, is to be turned into a world-class international tourism destination with an allocation of US$100 million (636.5 million yuan) given for upgrading projects in the area. The deputy secretary of Stone Forest Scenic Area administration of Shilin, Huang Zongxiang said his administration had promised to the Central Civilisation Office, Ministry Of Housing and Urban-rural of People's Republic of China and China National Tourism administration, that they would work to strengthen the management and improve the tourism facilities. "We will make efforts to relocate some facilities which had negative effects on sightseeing in accordance with World Heritage Convention. "From the amount we have allocated, we hope to achieve our goal of sustainable development and build a world-class international tourism destination that will boost tourist arrival here," he said during a media briefing today on the upgrading projects for the scenic area. He said the tourist site had recorded a 17 per cent increase in total visitors from January to May this year. "We managed to record about 1.354 million visitors in the first five months this year, compared with 196,000 visitors in the same period last year." He also hoped that the spot will attract more visitors in the coming years with the improvement of its tourism facilities and services. Huang said about US$25 million (159.12 million yuan) had been spent on facilities such as new traffic network covering an area of 490 acres, installation of two LED screen, lightning disaster prevention system and refurbishment of current facilities. "Other facilities such as new main entrance, parking space, visitor centre, ticketing office, toilet, tourist reception centre and electric vehicles have been put into use last month," he said. The Stone Forest Scenic Area, which is located about 78 km away from Kunming in Southeast, is the geological wonder sculpted by natural wind and rain erosion 270 million years ago. Attractions in the area also include the Heisonyan (Naigua) Stone Forest, Dadieshui Waterfall, Changhu Lake, Moon Lake and Guishan National Forest Park. --BERNAMA