“I set off from the west gate of Ninghai County in March of the year of Gui-Mao. All clouds in the sky were dispelled and the sun is bright. Both my mood and the scenery in the mountains were under the state of joy.” When Xu Xiake wrote the above paragraph in his opening travel notes on May 19th, 1613, he wouldn’t have imaged that the same date has become a popular wonderful date – “China Tourism Day” more than 400 years later.
The theme of the “China Tourism Day” this year was “Integration of Culture and Tourism & Good Life”. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism organized a nationwide linkage. The main venue was located at Mount Huang of Anhui Province and the branch venue of Shanxi Province was set the Eight Spring Gorge Scenic Area of the Grand Canyon Taihang Mountain at Huguan County, Changzhi City. It was sponsored by the Culture & Tourism Department of Shanxi Province and the Civilization Office of Shanxi Province, undertaken by the Civilization Office of Changzhi City, Culture & Tourism Bureau of Changzhi City and People’s Government of Huguan County, and co-sponsored by the Eight Spring Gorge Scenic Area of the Grand Canyon of Taihang Mountain at Huguan, Shanxi.
The Culture & Tourism Department of Shanxi Province together with Civilization Office of Shanxi Province launched a series of campaigns to publicize civilized tourism throughout Shanxi Province and Changzhi City would launch a five-month campaign of tourism performing arts into scenic area. In order to fully reflect the participatory and beneficial properties of “China Tourism Day”, the Grand Canyon of Taihang Mountain at Huguan, Changzhi implemented the preferential policy of half-price gate ticket for the scenic area on May 19th and a series of activities such as publicity of civilized tourism, literary and art into scenic area and award-winning quiz were carried out at the scene. By upper and lower linkage, resonation at the same frequency and the formation of joint force, those activities intensively displayed the development achievements accomplished by Shanxi Province in aspect of the integration of culture and tourism, and created a good atmosphere of paying attention to tourism, supporting tourism and civilized tourism throughout the whole society.
With various exceedingly fascinating and charming artist programs appreciable at Eight Spring Gorge nowadays and the magnificent and beautiful Taihang Mountain towering majestically over the land, tens of thousands of tourists were attracted to come here. The advantages of the integration of literature and tourism were quite obvious. With the sounds of nature (Shanxi Girl, No.1 Gorge of Thousand-Mile Taihang and Everyone Talking about Shanxi’s Good Scenery) echoing to the clouds at 9:00 a.m., the opening ceremony for the campaign of Shanxi branch venue of China Tourism Day kicked off. The series of campaigns to publicize civilized tourism throughout Shanxi Province were put in full swing. The campaign of tourism performing arts into scene area started formally at Changzhi County.
At the opening ceremony, Wang Jihong (General Planner of the Culture & Tourism Department of Shanxi Province) pointed out that the campaign this time followed the idea of “integrating as appropriate and practicable”, took “Integration of Culture and Tourism & Good Life” as theme, fully reflected the participatory and beneficial properties of “China Tourism Day”. A series of campaigns such as publicity of civilized tourism and literary and art into scenic area were carried out for intensively displaying the development achievements accomplished by Shanxi Province in terms of culture and tourism industry to attract broad attention from the whole society to participate in culture and tourism industry.
Li Quanxin (Deputy Director of People’s Congress of Changzhi City and Secretary of CPC Committee of Huguan County) warmly welcome tourists from all over the world to Changzhi of Shanxi Province to appreciate magnificent rivers and mountains of China and overlook the scenery of Eight Spring Gorge. Li Quanxin thanked all sectors of the society for their care and support for the tourism industry of Changzhi. He said that Changzhi City would seize the favorable opportunity of transformation and development, vigorously develop culture and tourism industry, and stride forward on the journey of poverty alleviation and rural tourism.
Zhang Qiong (Director of Culture & Tourism Bureau of Changzhi City) said in his speech that 12 counties and districts throughout Changzhi City had carried out 15 thematic activities and launched 22 beneficial measures this year in order to attract more people to join the tourism team. At the same time, the Culture & Tourism Bureau of Changzhi City has carefully organized, planned and launch a series of excellent performing art programs and performances of intangible cultural heritage. 60 free performances have been carried out in key scenic area, striving to provide more diversified tourism products and better travel experience for tourists.
At the opening ceremony, visitor representative read out “Civilized Tourism Initiative” and a ritual of giving flags to civilized tourism volunteers was held.
The literature and art programs at the scene of the campaign were sometimes tender and soft as water, sometimes passionate and vehement, sometimes fresh and elegant, and sometimes happy and fashionable. They set off the towering Taihang and the atmosphere at the scene was warm and happy. Tourists at the scene said, “We are so proud to see that our motherland has such magnificent mountains and rivers as Eight Spring Gorge. We are so proud when we appreciate our long-standing traditional culture. We have viewed the perfect integration of culture with mountains and rivers here. We have felt the mellow and gorgeous atmosphere of the land of Shanxi. It’s really a rewarding trip. We will take practical actions to fulfill civilized tourism, carry forward Chinese culture and we also hope that more people can enjoy such a perfect trip.”
The culture and tourism industry of Changzhi City has been developing rapidly and continuous achievements have been accomplished since this year. A flashing video of the song My Motherland and Me flashed was played at the Eight Spring Gorge Scenic Area and went popular on the Internet during the May Day Holiday. Nowadays the Culture & Tourism Bureau of Changzhi City in conjunction with the Eight Spring Gorge Scenic Area carried out a unique flashing that combined various elements such as folk art forms, acrobatics, singing and dancing in order for three-dimensional display of the endless charms of “the Eight Spring Gorge of the magnificent and beautiful Taihang Mountain at Changzhi, Shanxi” in five ways: viewing at valley bottom, swimming in water, overviewing from sky, walking amidst clouds and flying in sky.
More than 1000 people, including leaders and experts at provincial, municipal and county levels, media reporters at virus levels and tourists, attended the opening ceremony.
