Lying in the south of China’s southeastern coastal Yangtze River Delta, Zhejiang Province has a long history and brilliant culture, with charming natural scenery places of historic figures and cultural heritages as well as the rich tourism resources. It has enjoyed the name as “the land of fish and rice, place of silk and tea, town of cultural and historical relics, and destination of tourist attraction.” According to the universal survey on tourism resource of the whole province in year 2004, our province has 21126 tourism resources units, of which 3817 are above the third level (excellent), accounting for 19% of the total units. The whole province has 16 national level scenic areas including Hangzhou West Lake, Qiandao Lake, Putuo Moutain, etc., 37 provincial level scenic areas including Dongqian Lake, Nanbei Lake, etc., Hangzhou Zhijiang National Tourist Holiday Resort and 14 provincial level tourist holiday resorts including Xiaoshan Xianghu Lake, Shaoxing Kuaiji Mountain, etc., as well as 38 AAA grade scenic areas (spots) including Hangzhou Song Dynasty Town, Shaoxing Keyan, etc. It also boasts to have 73 cultural relics under protection at national level, and 279 cultural relics under the protection at provincial level; and it has 78 forest parks at the national and provincial level, 8 national natural preservation zones and 8 provincial natural preservation zones, among which Nanxi Island National Ocean Natural Preservation Zone is the only one admitted into UN World Man & Biosphere Protection Organization. In addition, it has 5 national historic and cultural cities, 12 provincial historic and cultural cities, 16 of China’s excellent tour cities, and 13 water conservancy tourist spots at national and provincial level. Moreover, the province has 4 national museums of tea, silk, Southern Song Dynasty’s imperial kiln and the Chinese traditional medicine as well as a large number of provincial level museums. “Lyric Land, Scenic Zhejiang” is the tourism theme for the province, which has its unique charming characteristics integrating nature and culture beautiful sceneries with rich historic figures and cultural heritages..

After years of efforts, the tourism economy of our province has become the new sources of economic growth. Tourism has been the preliminary industry of the national economy, and the entire strength of the tourism economy has obviously heightened, having achieved the transference of our province from one with rich tourism resources to one with a powerful tourism economy. In 2004, our province had received 2.7667 million overseas tourists with the foreign excHange income of USD 1.3 billion, respectively increasing by 53.2% and 49.4% compared to the previous year; and it has received the 106 million domestic tourists with the income from tourism of RMB 90.25 billion, respectively increasing by 25.8% compared to the previous year; and the total income from tourism has reached RMB 101.05 billion, rising 31.6% over the previous year and accounting for 8.99% of the whole province’s gross domestic product (GDP). The comprehensive strength of our province’s tourism economy ranks the fifth in the nation. Therefore, tourism has truly become the new source of national economic growth and one of the leading preliminary industries in our province.

The tourism of our province has formed a sound industrial scale and a comparatively complete system with food, accommodation, transportation, tours, shopping, entertainment, etc. And the tourism products have developed from the traditional sightseeing to various comprehensive items such as recreation & vacationing, commercial conference & exhibition, shopping& entertainment, festival activities, etc. The province has formed 4 different tour lines in the east, south, north and west with Hangzhou as the center. The industrial structure our province’s tourism has gained constant adjustment and optimization in the process of development, and a wide variety of tourism industries, including a tourism catering service, restaurant & hotel industry, tourism transportation, tourism service industry, tourism commerce & trade, tourism entertainment industry, etc., all having achieved diversified development.

The whole province has 908 star-rated hotels, ranking second in the country. And it owns 54 international travel service agencies and 945 domestic travel service agencies, of which 22 are honored among the list as “National Double Top 100 Travel Agencies”. And the infrastructure construction, which is closely linked with tourism development, has also gained great progress: the network of “4-hour highway traffic” has been built within the province and expressways connecting SHanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, etc. have also been in use. With regard to the railway, it has achieved acceleration in speed and improvement in equipments, which has greatly shortened the tourist’s journey and thus brought more comfort for the tourist. More than 150 domestic airlines and over 20 international airlines have opened in 7 airports over the province. Such constantly improved tourism facilities have provided a favorable tour environment for the tourists from both home and abroad.

The opening-up of our province’s tourism has been continuously expanded, with the international tourism market having been further enlarged, and the regional cooperation of domestic tourism has also been further strengthened, maintaining all-round open tourism development, and the tourism has become an important aspect to embody the achievements gained from our province’s expansion and opening-up. In recent years, the inbound tourism of our province has gained powerful growth, and since the implement of reform and opening-up policy, it took 20 years for our province to receive it first 1 million overseas tourists, and only two years to exceed the second million. And the outbound tourism of our province has also maintained a pleasant development. Last year our province had organized more than 170,000 tourists for outbound tours, with an increase of 1.3 times more than the year 2000. And the countries and areas for outbound tour extend from Hang Kong, Macao, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand to Japan, European countries, etc.

With the high attention paid to the tourism economy by Party committees and governments at all levels over the province, the environment for the tourism development has gained continuous improvement, In recent years, the provincial committee of CPC and the provincial government have issued three policy-related documents to support tourism development, and each area of the province has also instituted and implemented the specific policies and measures to speed up the development of tourism institutions and initiate public funds to be put into the tourism projects and its infrastructure construction. Focusing on the construction of the tourism market laws and the implement of standardized management to regulate the tourism market, our province has instituted a series of laws and regulations such as the Regulations for Tourism Management of Zhejiang Province to straighten the tourism market and implement tourism reliability. The hotline “96118” for a comprehensive tourist service covering the whole province, is established as the first in the country by our province, and has provided a platform to settle complaints and disputes by tourists about the tour disputes and improve the tourist service as well as promote the environment for tourism development.