Tongliao driving tourism

A summit held by Inner Mongolia autonomous region city, Tongliao, wrapped up on August 8, after putting forward ways to promote self-drive tourism.

The event kicked off on August 5 with over 50 motorbikes and recreational vehicles setting out on a one-day tour along a 500-kilometre route that links several campsites, museums and natural attractions on Ke'erqin prairie in the east of Inner Mongolia.

After the trip, experts, tourism practitioners and members of self-drive clubs from Beijing, Tianjin as well as Liaoning, Hebei and Shaanxi provinces discussed about how to improve the quality of the self-drive route, standardize the construction of campsites in the area and push forward the cooperation on tourism related industries among these provinces and cities.

According to Yu Feng, deputy mayor of Tongliao, a total of 800 million yuan ($117 million) has been invested to build 13 campsites, two tourist service centers and five high-level tourism towns.

"To usher in the new era of mass tourism, since 2014, we have designed a route connecting over 80 tourist attractions in Tongliao and, at the same time, updated the self-drive support system along the route since," says Yu, adding that the proportion of self-drive travelers in the overall number of tourists to the city had increased by 40 percent from 2014 to last year.