Making of a playground

Chongqing's Happy Valley boasts a complex landscape featuring a river, a valley and cliff.[Photo by Yang Feiyue/China Daily]

Brought into focus

The Overseas China Town Group built its first Happy Valley park in Shenzhen, in Guangdong province, back in 1998.

Over the years, the group has built parks in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chengdu, in Sichuan province and Wuhan, in Hubei province.

Chongqing's rapid economic growth and high speed rail and air connectivity is part of the reason why the Happy Valley park was set up here.

Last year, the municipality received more 450 million visits from home and abroad, up 15.1 percent over the previous year.

Tourism income was 265 billion yuan ($39 billion), up 17.5 percent.

Meanwhile, other theme park chains are making plans to set up shop in Chongqing.

The Six Flags theme park chain from the United States is expected to start operations in 2019, and later this year, a cartoon park, a European-style resort, a polar region ocean park and a flower park plan to open.

In fact, a water park next to Happy Valley opened on July 8.

It was also built by the Overseas China Town Group and covers an area of 180,000 square meters.

The park features one of the world's biggest wave-making pools.

Happy Valley which is able to withstand increasing competition thanks to innovation, got the "Chinese Famous Brand" tag from the trademark review and adjudication board of the State Administration for Industry& Commerce last year.