Han Ximin

    ximhan@126.com

    SHENZHEN travelers can enjoy discounts of up to half, and even 100 percent, off tickets for admission to tourist attractions in nine cities and autonomous regions of different ethnic groups in Guizhou until Dec. 31.

    Tourist attractions in Zunyi, Anshun, Tongren, Gui’an New Area, Huairen and three autonomous prefectures will offer half prices for visitors from eight cities in China including Shenzhen.

    Tourist attractions in Liupanshui City and Weining County will offer free admission, and Guiyang, capital city of Guizhou, will offer discounts of 20-50 percent off.

    The preferential polices were made to promote local tourism and out of gratitude for the counterpart aid to Guizhou by developed cities including Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Shanghai, Suzhou and Guangzhou.

    “Tourist attractions in Bijie will be free to tourists from Shenzhen as a way to pay back Shenzhen people for their aid over the past decades,” Yang Xiaoqiang, vice mayor of Bijie, said at a tourism promotion meeting at Poly Theater in Nanshan District, on Thursday.

    Shenzhen has been doing counterpart aid work for 20 years, since 1996, covering many sectors including education, livelihood projects, infrastructure, economic cooperation and cadre exchanges. The city has invested 544 million yuan (US$79 million) into 850 poverty-relief projects. Shenzhen enterprises also invested in 79 projects and supported 34 industrial projects. The 33 enterprises in Shenzhen Intelligent Industrial Park moved their production bases to the Bijie Economic Development Zone.

    Bijie, in northwestern Guizhou, is rich with natural resources such as the World Geopark, the karst Zhijin Cave, as well as historic heritage.