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REGIONAL> news
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Normalcy returns as impact of quake fades
By Huang Zhiling (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-08-09 17:07
In just one month, 1.5 million people visited the area, which opened after four years of reconstruction. Combined daily transactions of the shops, restaurants and bars in the alleys now surpasses 1 million yuan, according to Yin Jianhua, chief of the Chengdu Cultural Tourism Group. About one month after the quake, the average occupancy rate of Chengdu's star hotels had risen to 60 percent and some had risen to 80 percent, higher than the rate before the quake, said Deng Gongli, chief of the city's tourism administration. All the city's attractions except those in quake-hit Dujiangyan, Pengzhou and Chongzhou - three cities under Chengdu's administration - are open to visitors, Deng said. Workers at the Chengdu Research Center for giant panda breeding are impressed with the number of foreign visitors. One is Chase Bislow, a 23-year-old team leader from Nebraska whose organization takes students from the United States to China. Bislow has been in Chengdu since June 13 with seven high school students aged 14 to 18 from the US who are participating in a summer camp. "I come to the center almost every day with students who love the pandas and do not fear a quake," he told China Daily. (China Daily 08/07/2008 page15)
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