A NEW one-stop booking function for 1,359 sports venues across the city was officially launched on the “i深圳” app Saturday, Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported.

The function’s biggest advantage is that it allows the public to reserve school sports facilities during holidays and other spare time.

Citizens can book 31 sports venues including 190 sports grounds for 11 types of sports in Yantian District via the app by selecting “体育场馆预约.”

These sports venues include municipal and district-level public gymnasiums, qualified school stadiums and private stadiums.

The city encourages schools to open their sports venues to the public during weekends and holidays, as well as during daytime when there are no classes. Over 400 schools have opened their outdoor sports venues to the public.

A total of 254 schools and sports stadiums in Bao’an District, 180 various types of sports stadiums in Longhua and 60 gyms in Pingshan have been included in the one-stop reservation services.

A local resident surnamed Lin said that the recent rains caused a shortage of basketball courts so the function has made the booking easier.

Longhua Cultural and Sports Center, a new sports facility that was put into operation Saturday, can also be found on the app. The sports center, covering 64,000 square meters with a floor area of 110,000 square meters, is currently the district’s largest cultural and sports facility.

What's more, Futian District has started to issue coupons for cultural and sports items worth a total of 10 million yuan (US$1.49) in different batches. The first batch of coupons was issued Saturday and the rest will be issued once a week, with the coupons being valid for seven days from the date of issuance. The coupons can be used when booking sports venues or buying tickets for sports events.

In addition, Bao’an District will issue 2 million yuan worth of coupons for cultural and sports consumption from June to August, while Yantian District has sent out nearly 10 million yuan worth of coupons in the second quarter and will issue more next, according to the report.

(Huang Huiyu, Wang Jingli)