A TRAIN goes between rocky cliffs, up into the clouds and emerges on the other side with a view of mountain peaks shrouded in white clouds — such video clips of Huangshan Mountain have captivated millions on Chinese social media.

Huangshan Mountain in East China’s Anhui Province, with its imposing scenery and vast number of works of art and literature inspired by it, has won entry onto the UNESCO World Heritage List for its cultural value and natural scenery. The renowned mountain, however, also has another, lesser-known role as the place where China’s modern mass tourism took off 40 years ago.

In July 1979, then-Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping paid a visit to the mountain at the age of 75, where he called for all-out efforts to accelerate the nation’s tourism development in a number of speeches during the visit.

Today, tourism has become one of China’s important economic drivers. About 5.5 billion trips were made in China in 2018, contributing nearly 10 trillion yuan (US$1.45 trillion) to the country’s GDP, or 11 percent, according to statistics given by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

More than 3.3 million people visited Huangshan Mountain in 2018. Forty years ago, that number was around 100,000.

Economic boost

In the late 1970s, China was at the beginning of its reform and opening up. Tourism was still a new sector in the country. Many locals didn’t see Huangshan Mountain’s tourism value. Some even saw it instead as hiderance to  agricultural activity.

Pan Meili, manager of a local four-star hotel, was born in 1969 in a small village at the foot of Huangshan Mountain, where all residents used to make a living on farming.

After 1979, the villagers started to realize the economic benefits of tourism as more tourists visited. Pan’s parents also saw the potential of tourism and opened a family hotel.

“There were only three rooms in the family hotel, which could accommodate at most 10 guests,” said Pan.

Tourism gradually replaced farming in the village as the main source of income. In the 1980s, almost everyone in the village was doing something related to tourism, such as running hotels, restaurants, souvenir shops, or working as tour guides.

Improved services

Services have been improved in the mountain for facilitating visits to the site. “It took me 10 hours to climb to the top the first time I came to Huangshan. But we rode the cable car this time. It’s much easier,” said Weimar Arcila, a businessman from Colombia who is on his sixth trip to Huangshan Mountain in the past decades.

Cable car services at Huangshan Mountain, which could transport people to the top in just eight minutes, began running in 1986.

Today cable car services have expanded to four cableways, including a sightseeing rail track service, to connect different parts of the mountain. The sightseeing train rose to fame after a video went viral on TikTok, a short video-sharing app, showing breathtaking views of rocks and pine trees in the midst of clouds as the train descended from the peak to the valley.

As more people flock to Huangshan Mountain, the administration has also added options for tourists to scan a QR code and buy tickets on their cell phones.

After spending a day on the mountain, Arcila and his family decided to stay at Yupinglou Hotel for the night, at about 1,700 meters above sea level. As an old patron of the hotel, he was amazed by its recent changes.

“The hotel has been renovated. We established an art gallery displaying the history and culture of Huangshan Mountain,” said Pan, the hotel manager. The hotel also offers cultural activities such as tea ceremonies, yoga and Taichi lessons every night in the lobby.

Green development

With more and more tourists coming to Huangshan, the administration of the mountain has rolled out a series of policies to strike a balance between tourism promotion and nature conservation, such as introducing a cap on the daily number of tourist permitted to enter the mountain at 50,000 people.

“More tourists mean more money, but we can’t be greedy. We’re pursuing sustainable development,” said Ge Xufang with the Huangshan Mountain scenic area management committee.

The administration also pioneered the practice of opening different tourist sites to the public on an alternating basis in 1987. The practice was later adopted by administrative authorities of other mountain scenic spots in the country.

Lotus Peak, the highest point of Huangshan Mountain, was reopened to tourists this March after being closed to visitors for five years, while another site, Tiandu Peak, was subsequently closed to tourists for maintenance.

The Huangshan Mountain scenic area is also home to plenty of old and rare trees, out of which 137 are under special protection. Different measures have been adopted for the protection of different trees, according to Ge.

Not far from Yupinglou Hotel stands the Greeting Pine, one of China’s most well-known trees. The pine tree, growing out of the rocks with a long branch extending over the mouth of a cave, got its name mainly because it appears to be greeting all who visit. It is believed to be between 800 and 1,000 years old.

To protect the old pine, the local government has introduced a system of designating guardians, or rangers, to monitor it. The first guardian was appointed in 1981, and the tradition has been going on ever since.

“Normally I check the tree and record details of its condition every two hours. I will nonetheless check it every 30 minutes in extreme weather when strong winds blow and heavy snow hits the mountain,” said Hu Xiaochun, the Greeting Pine’s 19th guardian. “The work can be boring if you simply view the pine as a tree, but it’s a different story if you see it as a senior member of your family,” said Hu. “I treat it the same way I would to my own family.”  (Xinhua)