IN the past five years, Qingdao has been building itself into a popular international seaside resort, one of the best tourism destinations in China and a sailing capital.

    To satisfy the needs of visitors, Qingdao also launched a series of tourism attractions featuring sightseeing, cultural festivals, sports and bodybuilding. Five resorts were built, including Old Stone Man, Phoenix Island and Tianheng Island; marine activities featuring sailing and fishing were developed; cultural tourism products were launched, including weddings, beer streets and military culture.

    The city has helped organize a long list of international competitions to accelerate the pace toward a popular international seashore resort. Among these were international marathon for China, Japan and South Korea, the sailing competition of the 29th Olympic Games and the Qingdao leg of Clipper Round the World Yacht Race.

    During the five years, 29.9 billion yuan (US$4.54 billion) was spent on 119 tourism projects. Two billion yuan was spent on Qingdao Beer Street and seven food streets and 40 star-quality restaurants. More than 6 billion yuan was spent on 17 luxury hotels. Another 10.7 billion yuan was spent on 18 shopping streets and shopping malls.

    In addition, Qingdao has tried to attract more than 30 domestic and overseas brand-name tourism companies. By the end of last year, there were more than 1,000 tourism companies, 160 star-rated restaurants and 362 attractions.(Jane Lai, Song Xiu)