Alip Hakimhan, who is in his 20s and a member of China’s Tajik ethnic group, is passionate about promoting his hometown.
“Summer has come, why not put aside your busy city life, come to Xinjiang and rediscover your inner peace and aspirations?” said Alip, as a local tourism official and travel content creator based in Taxkorgan. The border county is located at an altitude of 4,800 meters on the Pamir Plateau in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
“As transport and other infrastructure have been built here, the county is within the reach of more and more travelers,” Alip said. He believes villagers will benefit more and more from tourism. Taxkorgan earned its fame from the local Tajik people’s unique customs, passed down over generations against the heavenly backdrop of the plateau.
Alip has recently been more active in updating his account on Douyin, China’s TikTok, because the best season to travel in Xinjiang usually starts in June, which this year coincides with the relaxation of COVID-19-related restrictions in Shanghai and Beijing.
Aspiring travelers outside the region have already been sharing their excitement at Xinjiang’s magnificent scenery and diverse cultures captured in the tens of thousands of pictures and videos posted online.
Like Alip, increasing numbers of officials from Xinjiang’s local tourism departments have climbed to the top of social media rankings by sharing their Xinjiang images, accompanied by vivid stories or legends they have known since childhood.
Among those is He Jiaolong, an official from Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture, a picturesque subregion in the very north of Xinjiang. She is known for her equestrian exploits—with videos of her galloping across Ili’s endless grasslands wearing a red cloak being shared widely across the nation—and for her after-work voluntary efforts in promoting quality Xinjiang products via live-streaming to help alleviate economic pressures on local farmers. In the first quarter of this year, products sold through her live-streaming were worth over 20 million yuan ($3 million), while sales in 2021 reached 140 million yuan ($21 million).
Her live-streaming success has inspired many more tourism officials, including Alip, to use social media platforms as one of their main methods of promoting local culture and products. In 2021, Xinjiang began to recover its reputation as a heaven for tourists, a long-held reputation once tarnished by terrorism.
To offer more convenience for travelers and to boost tourism and related industries, the regional government has published a series of guidelines since early June, including allowing the resumption of group tours to Xinjiang from other provinces, which had been suspended due to the pandemic. The guidelines also demand that all lower levels of administration must follow the current national dynamic zero-COVID-19 policy but bar any extra local control measures. At the same time, the phone numbers of all county-level tourism bureau leaders have been made public so that tourists can lodge a complaint if they have any.
Ready for guests
“It’s much smoother for sightseers to travel across prefectures now,” said Zhu Kebin, a business owner in Manas County, 130 km west from Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital city.
Manas, home to 280,000 people from 32 ethnic groups, began to step up its tourism industry some five years ago, as President Xi Jinping’s eco-conscious concept of “green is gold” became more widely appreciated by locals. Having witnessed the popularity of his father’s entertainment facilities in the mountains of Manas among locals, 29-year-old Zhu saw the opportunity to expand his father’s business to cater to the tastes of the younger generation.
Manas is rich in landscapes, such as forests, wetlands, and Danxia landform, a distinctive landscape featuring red-colored sandstone that forms cliffs and pillars. The younger Zhu is planning to provide camping services along the popular S101 Provincial Road, which traverses across various landscapes.
“Whenever they want to escape urban life they can rent a campsite, spending time here relaxing,” Zhu said. He plans to provide the necessary cooking tools and materials for visitors as well as activities and entertainment. “Many people called to make reservations during the weeklong trial run which started on June 1,” Zhu said.
Even though Zhu is confident he will achieve his initial goal, the scale of his business is currently limited. “We are lacking professional managers and service staff. For now, I probably can only take bookings from individual tourists rather than tour groups,” he told Beijing Review.
Zhu’s new business is only a tiny part of the county’s overall tourism plan. Li Xiaoping, head of the Manas Culture and Tourism Bureau, has been busy visiting counties in Xinjiang that have well-developed tourism industries to learn from their experiences in providing quality service and making tourism a sustainable resource for locals.
“Villagers near the newly developed scenic spots are very active, particularly the Kazak villagers living near the S101 Provincial Road. Dozens of them are taking the opportunity to sell homemade products along the road,” Li told Beijing Review.
In response, Li and his colleagues soon began integrating the Kazak villagers and their culture into the county’s tourism development plan. The county received almost 3 million visits last year and, this year, visits are expected to hit 3.6 million, which is projected to increase the county’s revenue from tourism to 1.9 billion yuan ($284 million).
