Written by: Economic Information Daily
Posted on: December 12, 2018 | 
| 中文
Self-driving on Dushanzi-Kucha Highway
As night falls, the night market of the Grand Bazaar in Urumqi, Xinjiang, thrives extraordinarily. Amid lingering smells of various delicious foods, tourists from home and abroad enjoy their tour of the market place. In recent years, the number of tourists has soared, as the society of Xinjiang becomes more stable. In order to ensure sustained and healthy development of tourism, Xinjiang has upgraded its goal from, “building beautiful scenery everywhere” to “fostering more industries related to sightseeing tourism.”
“We come to Xinjiang to call out the blank spots in domestic tourism. The tourism infrastructure here is better than what I expected.” Wu Xinyi, a tourist from Shandong, went on a 15-day self-driving tour around northern Xinjiang during her holiday, by renting a car from Urumqi. She said that the highway was connected and she experienced the Xinjiang RV base and restaurants along the way, according to the travel strategy she had searched on the Internet before departure. "It is easy to find and the service is good," she said.
According to the statistics from the Tourism Development Commission of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, there are more than 11,000 accommodation suppliers in Xinjiang with industrial and commercial registration, and more than 9,419 hotels have registered on the online travel website ctrip.com to sell their rooms. New forms of the industry such as family hotels, country hostels, motels and tourist camps are also developing.
Under colorful umbrellas on the dark sandy hills of the Turpan Sand Therapy Center, tourists from different places grab the “tail” of Turpan Basin’s heat and bury themselves in the hot sand for sand therapy.
"A lot of people come here for sand therapy from June to August. Tourists like to come here for rehabilitation after visiting the popular spots such as Karez Wells and the Flaming Mountain," said Keranmu Abdirem, director of the Sand Therapy Center of Turpan Uygur Hospital. In recent years, "tourism + health care" has become increasingly popular, and many tourists have resorted to tourism to treat diseases, experience sand therapy and keep fit.
Chen Hao, a tourist from Guangzhou, saw the efficacy of Turpan sand therapy in treating rheumatoid arthritis through the mobile App Tik Tok and took his wife to try it. Another purpose of his trip was to see the development of sand therapy industry, hoped that he could try to transform it into indoor sand therapy and bring it back to Guangzhou. "I want to take this to start my own business," said Chen.
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