Combined tourist zone to put Silk Road on fast track

Combined tourist zone to put Silk Road on fast track

Friday, April 06, 2007

China will link its sections of the Silk Road into a single, sprawling tourism zone to streamline management and promotion of the historic trading route, state media reported Thursday.
The new plan will eliminate existing administrative boundaries that inhibit effective management of the 2,100- year-old route, which winds for more than 3,000 kilometers through six Chinese provinces and regions that now all have their own tourism plans.

"In the future, we will promote the area globally as a famous brand of Chinese tourism," Wu Wenxue, planning and finance director of the China National Tourism Administration, told China Daily.

A "new management mechanism" would be set up for the tourism zone, the paper said, without giving details.

The project is expected to be finished in November, it said.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE