Coastlines, cafes, culture - Siming district assets beautiful and profitable

Siming district in Xiamen has abundant cultural and natural resources - picturesque coastlines, cafes and European-style buildings - providing an atmosphere that attracts creative industries, such as the movie production and wedding hosting sectors.

Along the Huaxin Road in Siming, for instance, there are about 50 villas with red bricks and pointed roofs. It's said nearly every house has welcomed actors and directors at least once, and some many times. Though a popular scenic spot, not everyone knows their full history.

Some of those villas' histories can be traced back to 1957. At that time, many Chinese experts, architects and artists returned home from overseas to contribute to their motherland. They were the first owners of the villas.

Yan Xiyu, who was president of Xiamen's All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, brought his family back to Xiamen in 1952 and initiated the project to build the villas. Yan Dacheng, his son, said many overseas Chinese sold their cars and houses to help construct the villa area.

"The interesting thing is many people who lived next door (to each other) became neighbors again in this place," Yan told Xiamen Evening News.

Lin Lumin, who is also an overseas Chinese returnee, said the yards were filled with flowers and fruits. Some people planted citronella and yellow ginger so they could prepare curry for their guests.

Yan Dacheng and Lin said that those overseas Chinese returnees brought not only furniture and living habits from foreign countries, but also built the basis for the culture - mixed with both Chinese and western elements that is found in Siming.

Today, only one out of five villas still belong to the offspring of overseas Chinese. Many of them have been sold or renovated for cafes, Western restaurants and educational institutes. However, it remains an area where Fujian's local culture is mixed with that of overseas Chinese-styled culture.

Besides Huaxin Road, the Zhongshan Road, a major commercial area; Nanputuo Temple, with centuries of history; Xiamen University and Gulangyu Island - a traffic-free world cultural heritage site featuring music and romance - have also become major cultural landmarks of the area.

The culture mixed with modernity and tradition, the history hidden in every brick of the old buildings and the picturesque landscape all add up to make the district a must-see traveling destination.

During National Day in October, Siming welcomed more than 1.6 million tourists, up 17.21 percent year-on-year. Tourism revenue grew about 23 percent to top 2 billion yuan ($288.1 million).

Walking along the Zhongshan Road, a visitor can easily experience the life of local people - drinking a bowl of traditional local-style peanut soup, listening to opera at a teahouse and admiring the beauty of the narrow lanes.

The Ministry of Commerce released a document recently, saying the government encourages pedestrian streets to be renovated and upgraded into high-quality commercial streets. The Zhongshan Road was selected.

The operating company of the street said it has constructed an official website, Sina Weibo and WeChat pages and an app for visitors to check the tourism and shopping information of the street. More services are underway to make the commercial area more intelligent.

The modern concept of tourism is much broader than sightseeing. The idea of all-for-one tourism was put forward nationally in recent years - to integrate all the resources, such as related industries, the ecological environment, public services and governance to boost regional development driven by tourism.

It aims to meet the demands of tourists from all points of the compass and improve the quality of traveling, rather than simply caring only about visitor numbers.

The Siming district is developing all-for-one tourism. The scenery of mountains, sea and modern buildings will be combined to offer visitors a richer experience. The tourism authorities of the district plan to build a wharf beside the Huli Mountain so that tourists can travel between Zengcuoan village or Gulangyu Island and the mountain to ease traffic jams on the road. They can also enjoy some water sports, such as yachting and water biking.

Siming is also attracting more high-end hotels and other commercial facilities dedicated to developing all-for-one tourism. Luxury hotel chain Aman Resorts and a GHM-branded hotel decided to build their brands in the district in September, which will no doubt boost the profile of Siming.

To innovate its tourism products, the district has introduced hot-air balloons and virtual reality projects. By September, nine tourism projects had been signed with funding of up to 400 million yuan. From January to August, the tourism, conference and exhibition industry of the district had sales of 5.74 billion yuan, up 11.3 percent year-on-year, according to the zone.

(China Daily 11/16/2018 page12)