Coal rich Shanxi is switching tourism

Tourism was an increasing important part of Shanxi's economic restructuring development in 2014, when the province's economy faced downward pressure.

According to the Shanxi Statistics Bureau, the gross income of the tourism market amounted to 284.65 billion yuan ($45.97 billion), an increase of 23.5 percent compared to last year. Many natural resource-based enterprises, especially the coal-based enterprises, switched to the tourism market proactively.

By the end of 2014, 215 resource enterprises had invested in the tourism market, covering scenic spot development, star hotels, leisure resorts and amusement facilities with a total investment of 32 billion yuan. Nine of the invested projects have investments of over 1 billion yuan.

Shanxi has integrated its coal resources, which have released a large amount of capital from the coal industry and related industries into the tourism industry. A group of new scenic spots and supporting facilities have been established or are under construction.

However, some of the tourism projects were not properly planned and developed, and have limited driving force in tourism economy development.

Therefore, officials from the statistics bureau suggest that the tourism investors to figure out their own characteristics and advantages through scientific planning and exploration.