The city of Qinhuangdao, Hebei province, has been applying a tourist industry strategy for three years and is trying to give it a comparative advantage, and make it as a means to promote the industrial structure upgrading and as a more realistic way to improve people’s lives.

Wang Santang, the city’s Party secretary, had this to say about the strategy, “There’s been great momentum in economic and social development from the strategy, which is based on tourism and making the city more prosperous through industry and culture. We’re getting closer to a famous coastal city that is suitable for living, starting a business, or travel.”

The people of Qinhuangdao now have a greater, all-round awareness of tourism all year long and citywide and of blending tourism with other industries. Its development pattern is characterized by widespread prosperity and growth, and interaction with culture, tourism, and the ecology.

The strategy’s effects are noticeable. In 2011, the city had more than 21 million domestic and foreign tourists, for a year-on-year increase of 12.9 percent, and total tourism revenues of 17.28 billion yuan, a 17.3-percent increase.

Meanwhile, the urban environment has continued to improve, with forest coverage reaching almost 42 percent and air quality taking the lead in Hebei province. And, thanks to these achievements, it has been honored as the “Best Leisure City of 2011”, one of the “Top 100 Cities in Tourism” of China, and a “Pilot City in Urban Leisure” at the national standards.

As for the positioning of the tourism industry, the city has a “One center, three bases” concept and has established a modern industrial system with tourism at the center. It is working on a coastal ecology leisure and vacation center, a major manufacturing base, hi-tech industrial base, and a port logistics distribution base for North China. It plans to promote leisure-activity and headquarters economies, cultural creativity, and other new businesses and emerging industries.

The city will also enhance its soft power through its culture industry, making it a new growing point. In 2011, it spent 1.92 billion yuan on key culture industry projects, and expects culture industry added-value output to increase 34.4 percent this year, compared with the past year.

It has been working on six important projects since the beginning of this year to strengthen itself with culture, which includes popularizing a socialist values system, improving its best cultural products, improving public culture services, a cultural system reform, and a more efficient, improved, and talented culture team.