Special supplement: Olympics-happy Hebei

As the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games draw near, Hebei province is ready to promote its Olympic-theme tourism to visitors from home and abroad.

Wang Xinyong, director of Hebei Province Tourism Bureau, talked with China Business Weekly about the province's preparations for the Olympics before the start of the Hebei Economic and Trade Fair on May 18.

Due to its location surrounding Beijing, Hebei province will play a crucial role during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games that will bring its tourism industry more opportunities and challenges.

According to statistics from previous Olympics, more than 85 percent of the new tourism income during Games goes to the host city and its neighboring regions. It is estimated that Beijing itself will attract more than 3 million tourists from home and over 500,000 tourists from abroad.

There is now a big push underway from almost every province and city in China for Olympic-theme tourism. Hebei will gain its share due to its "geographical superiority and splendid tourist resources," said Wang. It will benefit through accommodating Olympic warm-ups and preliminary soccer matches.

To meet the opportunity, Wang says Hebei has been improving its tourism environment and raising the overall level of the industry to prepare for an estimated one million international and 114 million domestic tourists that will generate projected revenues of 70 billion yuan.

The Hebei Province Tourism Bureau developed plans for six Olympic-theme approaches - preliminary competitions, training, eating and accommodations, sightseeing, entertainment and shopping.

Chinhuangdao city in Hebei will be among those that host Olympic soccer teams.

Other soccer hosts include the municipalities of Tianjin and Shanghai and the cities of Shenyang and Qinhuangdao.

"We will provide high-quality stadiums for training sessions and warm-up matches and provide rest and leisure facilities for athletes and tourists. Qinhuangdao has a great opportunity in holding soccer trial matches," Wang said.

"Olympic images are everywhere, Olympic hosts are everyone and we will provide green traffic routes to ensure all the athletes, coaches, referees and visitors will arrive and watch the matches on time with unimpeded traffic," he adds.

"To meet the needs of the Games reception system, Hebei province has selected 200 star-rated hotels with the total capacity of 40,000 beds in the cities of Langfang, Baoding, Tangshan and Qinhuangdao - all within a drive of 30 minutes to an hour-and-a-half of Beijing," he says.

"They are all able to meet international requirements for quality, environmental protection and security," Wang adds.

"We support the building of 'green hotels' to realize family-like services. We are also reinforcing training services to ensure that all foreign visitors stay in hotels comfortably, eat delicious food and enjoy satisfactory reception service. We will also provide discount offers to make all visitors to Hebei province have a value-worthy experience."

Hebei has beaches, plains, lakes, hills and mountains that offer beautiful natural scenery. It also has 168 national antique heritage protection sites, three world cultural heritage sites and five national historic culturally famous cities. The province has a long history, ample natural resources, exquisite traditional crafts and plenty of local products.

"Our province will have 20,000 tour guides in 2008, among whom nearly 1,000 can speak foreign languages. We will establish a website for Hebei tours during Olympic Games, providing convenience for visitors to browse online and make travel bookings" Wang said.

Domestic tourism income in Hebei increased by 22 percent in the first quarter of the year, when 150,000 overseas tourists visited, an increase of 32.32 percent.

(China Daily 05/19/2008 page10)