The restoration of the Duku Highway brings good prospects to tourists with its beautiful scenery. Open to traffic | tourists. Every year | Outlook

On June 18th, the Duku Highway officially resumed operation, welcoming tourists from all directions.

Due to natural factors such as winter snowfall and icing in the Tianshan Mountains, the Duku Highway has a closure period of up to 8 months each year. What attracts tourists from all over the world to this road, which only passes for four or five months a year? To what extent can a highway drive local economic development? How to expand and improve service capabilities when the peak tourism season in Xinjiang arrives? How can good scenery bring good prospects?

Why does the 8-month closure of the Duku Highway attract tourists every year?

Duku Highway starts from Dushanzi District, Karamay City in the north and ends at Kuqa City, Aksu Prefecture in the south, with a total length of 561km, and half of its sections are above 2000m above sea level.

The Duku Highway runs through the backbone of the Tianshan Mountains, with magnificent scenery along the way, forming a natural landscape painting that stretches for over 500 kilometers. Due to its unique geographical environment, tourists can self drive to explore the natural landscapes along the way, such as rivers, canyons, snow capped mountains, forests, grasslands, etc., and experience the beautiful scenery of the Tianshan Mountains from north to south.

On the first day, more than 6000 vehicles were opened to traffic at the entrance of Xinjiang Duku Base Camp

How many people arrived at Duku on the first day of resuming traffic? To what extent can a highway drive local economic development?

CCTV reporter Liu Fei: Due to the recent rainy and snowy weather, the resumption of traffic on the entire line this year has been delayed by approximately 8 days compared to last year. On the first day of opening, the number of vehicles entering the Duku Highway reached 6064, and as of 17:00 on June 19th, it had reached 3448.

At the departure point of the opening of the road, many self driving tourists gathered on the roadside. From the license plate, there were tourists from Beijing, Sichuan, Anhui, Jiangsu and other places. Everyone was very eager for the opening of the Duku Highway, and even some people came here a week in advance to "squat" and open it. The staff told me that during peak hours last year, the number of vehicles passing through in an hour even reached tens of thousands, indicating that this most beautiful highway is highly favored by everyone.

Some self driving tourists who come here want to go to the Narati Grassland in Ili and enjoy the poetic scenery of oil paintings; Some car owners will walk and look, from north to south, reaching southern Xinjiang and enjoying the different scenery of the Tianshan Mountains. Among them are elderly people in their sixties and seventies, as well as young people in their twenties and thirties, which also makes us feel the peak season of tourism has arrived.

At the opening site, Zhang Chunming, Secretary of the Party Group of the Culture and Tourism Bureau of Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, said that according to the annual list of tourism infrastructure projects, we will accelerate the construction of new tourism toilets and parking lots along tourist scenic roads such as Duku Road and Yizhao Road in 2023. In addition, the construction of the Wusuyi Comprehensive Tourism Service Center project at the intersection of G217 Duku Highway and S101 Highway is currently being accelerated. Since the resumption of work on March 15th, Wusu City has accelerated the construction of the project. At present, the important component of the project - the exterior decoration of the Huan Tian Shan Food City has been completed, and the reception capacity can be formed by the end of July. The main construction of the tourist service center is also being accelerated, and it is expected that the project will be fully completed and put into use by the end of October. After the operation of this project, the annual reception of tourists will reach 300000, achieving a comprehensive tourism revenue of over 150 million yuan.

The peak tourism season in Xinjiang is approaching, and various business formats are welcoming visitors

Not only the Duku Highway, but since the beginning of summer, Xinjiang's unique tourism resources have attracted many tourists. Seize the opportunity locally to promote the quality and upgrading of the tourism industry.

Kashgar, with its rich ethnic characteristics, has always been a popular tourist area in Xinjiang. This year, some scenic spots in Kashgar Ancient City have been renovated locally, and intangible cultural heritage exhibitions represented by earthenware have been added.

Chengdu tourist Wu Ying: The culture of craftsmen has particularly infected me. I just took a picture of that earthenware thing, including the pit of the earthenware. I can share it with my family and friends when I go back.

During this period, the number of tourists in various scenic spots in Xinjiang has been continuously increasing. Various regions are exploring new paths for the development of border and cross-border tourism, cultivating characteristic formats and route products such as red tourism, desert tourism, adventure tourism, and study tours, providing tourists with more choices.

In addition, Xinjiang has also released a series of incentive and subsidy policies, focusing on building a group of well-known tourism brands, extending the industrial chain, and enhancing employment absorption capacity.

Yan Naimin, Deputy Director of the Department of Culture and Tourism of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region: Continue to work hard on top-level design, cultivate a number of high-quality projects, and basically achieve access to 5A scenic spots on highways.

Smooth roads help transform the beauty of beautiful scenery into market value

Entering mid June, Xinjiang's tourism has fully entered the peak season. In the first five months of this year, Xinjiang received over 72 million tourists and achieved a tourism revenue of 62.479 billion yuan. Just last week, at the investment and financing event held by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Xinjiang, the total amount of investment and financing projects signed exceeded 10.1 billion yuan. With the arrival of the peak tourism season and the expansion of the tourism market, how can we improve the quality of services?

Jia Ruoxiang, a researcher at the Institute of Land and Resources of the China Academy of Macroeconomics, said, "If you want to get rich, first build roads." The smooth flow of roads promotes the transformation of Xinjiang's beautiful "appearance" to market value. Tourism involves many aspects such as food, accommodation, transportation, tourism, shopping, and entertainment. Xinjiang not only needs to learn to sell "scenery", but also needs to learn to sell "services". By further improving tourism infrastructure, improving supporting service capabilities, and creating a first-class business environment, it can not only attract people to come, but also leave people to play happily, gradually improving, expanding, and strengthening the tourism industry.

Creating a first-class consumption environment to support and optimize investment in tourism environment

The Duku Highway was originally just an ordinary transportation road, attracting more and more tourists due to its beautiful scenery. How can beautiful scenery bring good prospects in the face of the growing demand for a better life from the people?

Jia Ruoxiang, a researcher at the Institute of Land and Resources of the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomics: To unleash the vitality of the beautiful scenery economy, we need to combine the development of the beautiful scenery economy with better services and support for the new development pattern. By developing the beautiful scenery economy, we can create a first-class consumption environment and continuously release the fundamental support role of consumption in promoting high-quality development. Supporting rational investment in optimizing the tourism environment, leveraging the key role of investment in optimizing supply, and providing strong support for providing more and better tourism products through investment. At the same time, through the development of the tourism industry, it drives the development of related supporting industries, realizing a new development pattern of mutual promotion and progress between the tourism industry and related industries such as hotels, catering, transportation, entertainment, commerce, retail, etc., promoting a virtuous cycle and sustainable development of the economy.