The World Bank has launched a loan to Guizhou province to propel local cultural heritage protection and improve its tourist infrastructure.

Since implementing the project in 2009, the World Bank granted $18.7 million (115 million yuan) to the loan project by 2013, accounting for 31 percent of its total loans.

The loan project for Guizhou tourist development will be used mainly for the conservation of historical buildings, the repair of ethnic villages and dwellings, and the protection of intangible cultural heritage.

The loan project has 22 subprojects, involving three prefectures and 16 counties of Guizhou province, as well as the provincial tourist bureau and Guizhou Normal University.

The project, with a total investment of 549 million yuan ($88 million), will receive a loan of 374 million yuan from the World Bank, accounting for about 70 percent of the total investment.

The World Bank, with no precedence of granting loans to tourism projects, has developed a new system for data collection and management based upon the Access database.

One highlight of the project is that the implementation and supervision team of villages is formed through villager election, so that all villagers could take part in the whole procedure of repairing heritage buildings.

With the loan support, 18 ethnic villages of Guizhou, as part of the ethnic groups' cultural heritages, have completed their infrastructural construction of small scale.

For repairing historical buildings and constructing cultural tourist centers, 104 historical buildings have been renovated, and 165 are under repair.

Jia Tingting contributed to this story.