Year-round charm
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St.Sophia Cathedral, built in 1907,stands as a physical reminder of Harbin's colorful past. [Photo by Wang Haibin / China Daily] |
With a rich history and natural beauty, Harbin attracts visitors for much more than its famous ice festival. Craig McIntosh reports.
World famous as the "City of Ice", Harbin has turned it sights on becoming a major destination for those looking for fun in the sun.
The northeastern metropolis is already second in the country's rankings of the top 10 summer resorts, while data show that a growing number of tourists from home and abroad now recognize it as a city for all seasons.
In the first half of 2013, Heilongjiang's provincial capital witnessed a 6 percent rise in visitor numbers, generating 26.9 billion yuan ($4.23 billion) in tourism revenue, 12 percent up on 2011, according to government figures.
Officials are now aggressively promoting the area's wealth of wetlands, as well as its culture and cuisine, to entice even more people to experience the beauty of this historical city.
"Harbin has many open-water areas, is rich in wetland resources and the geographical conditions are excellent, which offer great potential for its development as an international, high-end tourist resort," the city's publicity director Zhang Lixin told overseas reporters recently.
Authorities have invested huge sums of money creating green space in its urban core, including setting aside 10 million hectares as parkland and planting more than 30 million trees.
