Kunming to invest 20 bln in tourism  

News from the Kunming Scientific Development High-level Forum is that the government plans to invest 20 billion yuan on a batch of important and featured tourism programs during the 12th five-year plan period.

According to plans drawn up by Kunming Tourism Administration, the city will build six key areas in downtown Kunming: a cultural recreation area around Cuihu Lake, a business area around Jinmafang, a convention and exhibition area around the International Convention and Exhibition Center, a culture and history area around the Kunming Old Street, a sports and vacation area around Dian Lake, and an airport economy area around the new airport.

Concentrating on the six key areas, there will be a batch of new and highly visible tourism boutique programs, and important programs with cultural characteristics of Kunming including the circum-Cuihu Lake recreational travel program in Wuhua District, an urban tourism program in Panlong District, Xishan Forest Park, Chenggong flower tourism, Dongchuan red soil program, and, in Jinning Zheng He's hometown cultural tourism program. Other featured programs will include golf, spas, red tourism, and an industrial heritage tourism.

For suburban areas the government will build a batch of recreational and vacation towns including Guandu, Shilin, Tuanjie, Jincheng, Zhuanlong, Tangchi, Shalang Bai Ethnic Township, and Shuanglong Mallard Lake. Outer suburbs will focus on health care tour with 20 featured tourism villages including Longtan in Tuanjie Town, Xiaoshuijing in Daying Town, Fubao in Guandu District, and Nuohei in Shilin County.

Yu Dingcheng, the director of Yunnan Provincial Tourism Administration, stated at the forum that Yunnan province had about 500 tourism enterprises as at the end of 2009, of which 50% are located in Kunming. Despite this there is only one tourist company with operating revenues of more than 1 billion yuan, and most of them earn less than 100 million yuan.