The beautiful scenery, rich natural resources in Diqing like mystical canyon, rare animals and wonderful cultures lay the basis for the high-quality development of tourism.

 

On march 11^th, 2019, the Administration of Culture and Tourism was founded in Diqing to direct the prefecture’s tourism development. A slew of of supportive policies have cleared the way for the integrated development of tourism and culture in Diqing.

 

Diqing has strengthened promotion of its local cultures and tourist destinations to increase the influence of the cultural brand “Shangri-La”. In January 2019, Diqing opened its Tik Tok official account and created a trending topic “the World’s Shangri-La” to involve as many people as possible to engage in the interaction. The videos were played 510 million times. Diqing also launched a series of advertising activities with the theme of “the World’s Shangri-La” at the Changshui Airport in Kunming.

 

According to the statistics provided by the Administration of Culture and Tourism, Diqing received 22.02 million foreign and domestic visitors with a total revenue of about 26.6 billion yuan in 2019.

 

Lu said that the rapid development of tourism has helped employment and poverty alleviation in the local areas. By the end of 2019, 26,000 people had worked in the tourist industry, accounting for 35.6% of the total population in Diqing. 28,000 people of 5,600 households have benefited from the development of tourism with the annual income increasing by 12,600 yuan on average per household.

 

In promoting the development of tourism and culture, Diqing attaches high importance to the protection of ecological protection which is key to the tourism industry.

 

However, transportation is the weak link for the tourism development in Diqing. The good news is the Lijiang- Shangri-La freeway is about to open and the Lijiang- Shangri-La railway will be put in use in 2021. With improved traffic conditions, Diqing will see a boost in tourism, said Lu.