Guangming Daily reporter Villi Shangjie
In summer, Qiaoerma Castle Peak in Nileke County, Yili Prefecture, Xinjiang, is like Dai, full of green. On the morning of June 10th, the opening ceremony of Duku Highway, known as "the most beautiful highway in China", was held here. More than a thousand self-driving cars from all over the country set out from all over the Duku Highway to visit this "most beautiful highway" and the beautiful scenery along the way.
Duku Highway crosses Tianshan Mountain from dushanzi area, Karamay City to Kuqa City, with a total length of more than 560 kilometers.
How can this road, which only runs for five months a year, attract tourists from all over the world? How to create a richer and more diverse travel experience for tourists? How does online celebrity Highway Keep Tourists’ Heart? The reporter interviewed this.
The scenery along Duku Highway is pleasant. Photo courtesy of Xinjiang Cultural Tourism Hall
1 Stimulate the effect of tourist business cards
Viewed from the sky, Duku Highway runs through the middle section of Tianshan Mountain like a dragon, connecting the north and south of Tianshan Mountain in series. The scenery along the highway is picturesque and dizzying.
Walking on this road, you can "see the four seasons in one day and different days in ten miles". All the way, through the Red Gorge, the Dragon Pond, the forest and the meadow, the four seasons alternate, which is beautiful.
At the opening ceremony, Deng Chunhua, a 61-year-old tourist from Hubei, could not hide his inner excitement. Since 2020, she has been driving with her husband "two people and one car" for three consecutive years. She said that she couldn’t get enough of the unique natural scenery along the Duku Highway. Last year, she didn’t go all the way because of the mudslide. This year, she made special arrangements early and waited for the official passage of this day.
People often say that the most beautiful scenery is on the road. Xinjiang tourist business card — — This is especially true for Duku Highway.
On the Duku road trip guide map, the beautiful scenery along the route is dotted: starting from dushanzi area, all the way through Dushanzi Grand Canyon and Baili Gallery — — Tamboura, air grassland — — Nalati grassland, nine bends and eighteen bends — — Bayinbuluke and the Pearl of Tianshan Mountains — — Large and small Longchi, Kuqa Grand Canyon and other scenic spots, one road allows tourists to enjoy most of the fine scenery in the north and south.
Gobi, grassland, lakes, snow-capped mountains, glaciers, canyons … … The photos of various landscapes along the way have aroused the admiration of tourists and tourism practitioners. Song Bo, the person in charge of the enterprise engaged in tourism management, said that this "most beautiful highway", which spans more than 560 kilometers and runs through the northern and southern Xinjiang, "contracted" 80% of the beautiful scenery in Xinjiang and brought a steady stream of passengers. His company has opened six RV camps in Xinjiang.
Affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, whether the Duku Highway can be opened to traffic as scheduled this year and whether foreign tourists can enter Xinjiang smoothly has become a problem that Song Bo has been worried about. You know, this highway is only open for five months a year, and there will be a lot of losses if it is delayed for one day.
"We will create all convenient conditions for tourists entering Xinjiang, and help the development of tourism enterprises through various measures such as lowering, returning, slowing down, awarding and supplementing." The words of the relevant person in charge of the Xinjiang Cultural Tourism Office gave Song Bo a "reassurance".
Five prefectures (cities) along the Duku Highway have also made great efforts to organize and arrange a series of colorful cultural feasts, such as Akon singing, grassland Nadam, Qiuci mural exhibition, dream lighting festival, tent camping festival, bonfire food festival, etc., so that tourists have more expectations for travel besides driving.
2 linkage to do "corridor economy"
Speaking of the changes that Duku Highway has brought to tourism and life, Nurguli Alabek, the head of Tekes County Zhaile Ecological B&B Park, seems to have endless words.
"Today’s rural tourism has developed from a farmhouse to a high-end homestay. My homestay has invested more than 3 million yuan, focusing on ethnic customs. Although affected by the epidemic in recent years, I can earn hundreds of thousands of yuan every year, which is much better than doing other businesses. " Nurguli Alabek told reporters.
In the eyes of local people, Duku Highway is not only a landscape road, but also a happy road. It not only bears the heavy responsibility of the traffic arteries in the northern and southern Xinjiang, but also looks like a winding river, which transports a steady stream of tourists along the route and makes people living here feel the vitality brought by the tourism economy. In the tourist season of 2019, this road carries a maximum of 20,000 self-driving cars per day.
North village, Agger Township, Kuqa City is the first stop for Duku Highway to enter southern Xinjiang. Since last year, taking advantage of its unique geographical position, north village has invested more than 10 million yuan to comprehensively upgrade the village’s tourism facilities, increased amusement projects, and formed a new rural tourism model of "village committee+company+farmer", which has become the punching point of online celebrity. Nowadays, the villagers have eaten tourist meals, and the collective income of the village has also increased from less than 50,000 yuan in 2020 to 350,000 yuan in 2021.
Yan Naimin, Deputy Secretary of the Party Group and Deputy Director of the Xinjiang Department of Culture and Tourism, said that in recent years, various states (cities) along the Duku Highway have continuously improved supporting services such as sightseeing stops, signage systems, service areas and parking areas, accelerated the construction of self-driving camps and improved supporting facilities. Around Xinjiang, exquisite tourist scenic roads and go on road trip routes have been built around scenic roads such as G217, G219 and S101, which has promoted the construction of tourist node cities, tourist towns and characteristic tourist villages along the way, and the "corridor economy" linked by transportation and tourism has become increasingly popular.
Only by constantly improving the infrastructure can online celebrity’s highways become more popular. In 2019, Xinjiang Transportation Department started the highway disease treatment and service quality improvement project in the Duku section of G217 line, and in 2020, it started the second phase of the Duku highway improvement project. During the "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan" period, Xinjiang will continue to build the cultural and tourist destination of the Silk Road in southern Xinjiang, the Tianshan tourism industrial belt and the rural tourism destination, and scenic roads such as Duku Highway will play a role in it.
3 improve the service extension chain
With the rapid development of tourism industry and the promotion of information wave, tourists’ demand for personalized tourism is increasingly strong, especially with the change of tourism market structure and travel mode, tourists put forward higher requirements for intelligent customized services and the integration and sharing of public information in tourist destinations.
In order to improve the tourist experience, Xinjiang insists on paying equal attention to sightseeing and leisure tourism products. The latest statistics show that there are 73 self-driving caravan camps under construction and planned in Xinjiang, and 48 camps are in operation; There are 3,217 travel agents operating self-driving travel products in Xinjiang on major online travel agency platforms in China, and there are more than 600 brands of self-driving travel products, among which 30% are self-driving travel products with the theme of hotel accommodation, travel photography service and discovering the countryside.
In addition to enriching the tourism experience, how to improve the service and extend the chain in the development of online celebrity highway has also become a key issue for Xinjiang tourism departments to think about.
"We should rely on the highway network, take key scenic spots and scenic spots with development potential as key nodes, and promote high standards, high levels and high quality ‘ Transportation+Tourism ’ Comprehensive development system. " Yan Naimin said that Duku Highway is a representative highway of Xinjiang landscape, and it is also a beautiful business card for Xinjiang tourism. Xinjiang will further build the most beautiful self-driving highway brand in China, integrate the tourism resources in the areas along the route, improve the regional tourism system, jointly promote the healthy development of go on road trip, a single-depot highway, and create a more attractive tourist landscape for tourists.
