"Such public resources should not be run for profits but be tapped as affordable public services accessible to all Chinese," he said.

To crack down on profiteering, the NDRC has forbidden the malpractice by tourist sites of charging extra to give juicy kickback. The discount rate for entrance fees to traveling tours has been capped at 20 percent while the preferential treatment should not go beyond the officially designated group of people which include children, students, minors, senior citizens aged 65 or above, the enlisted, the disabled and religious personage.

The document also required provincial price monitoring departments to take back their pricing rights from lower branches over "significant tourism sites", which analysts applauded as "a belated move to ease public grumbles over expensive scenic spots".

An ironic phenomenon pointed out by Wen Guifang is that significant tourism sites such as ancient mausoleums, famous mountains and nature reserves are often in less developed central and western interiors and function as a crucial source of local financial revenue.

To cash in on the resources, financial-strained local governments preferred to farm them out and were forced to walk the tight rope of considering both contractors' need for profits and the residents' right of easy access to public resources.

"This has triggered a ferocious competition of price rises, and goes against the justified intention of optimizing public services," Wen said.

Taking a glimpse of the quoted prices for prestigious scenic spots from the China Youth Travel Service for instance, one will spot a unanimous spike for peak-season admission fees, with Jiuzhaigou resort in Sichuan charging 310 yuan (44.34 U.S. dollars) and Lushan Mountain 200 yuan, a rise of 45 yuan to 150 yuan respectively from the off-season.

Compared to the 1,149 yuan average monthly disposable income for urban dwellers and the 349 yuan for rural residents last year, such admission charges remain forbiddingly high.

Wen recognized that the overhaul came after the NDRC released a detailed pricing method last February amid public grumbles over costly tourist sites.

Under that method issued to all provincial-level price monitoring departments, the NDRC has ordered governmental departments to alert the public of their price rise intentions at least two months in advance and banned tourist site management from using admission fee income to bankroll pay rises, bonus and other benefits distribution for employees.

Entrance charge should be raised at least every three years, it said.

NDRC spokesman Li Pumin warned Tuesday at the press conference violating governmental departments would face punishment in line with the Price Law.

But analysts said a long-term cure to the problem is to upgrade current fiscal system to make sure local finance is wealthy enough to deal with local capital input demand and simultaneously strengthen the supervision of the expenditure of transfer payment from central government.

Researcher Wen Guifang said the campaign had "negligible impact" on easing consumer inflation because tourism is light-weighted in the Consumer Price Index which eased to 8.3 percent in March from a nearly 12-year high of 8.7 percent in February.

"Accommodating and transportation account for the largest share of tourism expenditure. Admission charges are just negligible," he said. (1 U.S. dollar equals 6.99 yuan)