In August 2018, Chongzuo, a prefecture-level city in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region,shone with great glamour as a contestant city in a popular CCTV program “Charming China”. This border city, which blends the cultures of both China’s Zhuang ethnic group and ASEAN countries, has been attracting tourists at home and abroad with its unique charm.

In recent years, Chongzuo has been vigorously developing cross-border tourism by making use of its unique geographical advantages, rich folk cultures and enchanting natural scenery. Data from the Chongzuo Tourism Development Commission reveals that in the first half of 2018, the number of domestic and foreign tourists to the city reached around 18.5028 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 46.3 percent; tourism revenues totaled RMB 16.762 billion yuan, posting a 41.73-percent rise on a year-on-year basis. In addition, the number of Chinese tourists to and consumption growth in Chongzuo surpassed all other cities in Guangxi, which made a positive contribution to the rapid growth of its tourism market.

Accelerated integration into the tourism circle under the Belt and Road Initiative

Since China proposed the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, comprehensive tourism cooperation and exchanges between China and ASEAN have opened a new chapter,and ASEAN countries along the Belt and Road such as Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia have lured more and more Chinese tourists. This has also brought fresh development opportunities for Chongzuo’s cross-border tourism industry.

As an important link of the Belt and Road Initiative,Chongzuo is, based on its own advantages, seizing the opportunities presented by the Southern Transport Corridor to foster cross-border tourism. According to Mai Jianjun,Director of Chongzuo Commerce and Port Management Commission, the Chongzuo municipal government is planning to pilot a series of projects, including promoting accessible tourism with Chinese ID cards, and setting up duty-free shops. In this way, it is striving to facilitate free movement of people and currency exchanges, create a tourism product system featuring sightseeing, holiday making and business travel, and establish international tourism cooperation zones that offer complete infrastructure, fast customs clearance, convenient services,as well as high information accessibility. These projects will take the China-Vietnam Detian-Ban Gioc Waterfalls Cross-border Tourism Cooperation Zone as the forefront,and the China-Vietnam Friendship Pass International Tourism Cooperation Zone and China-Vietnam Ningming(Aidian Gongmu Mountain)-Lang Son (Loc Binh Mau Son Mountain) Cross-border Tourism Cooperation Zone as the focal points.

In order to speed up incorporation into the tourism circle under the Belt and Road Initiative, guided by the strategic thinking of Guangxi “digging deep into ASEAN,expanding to South Asia, and connecting the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21stCentury Maritime Silk Road”,Chongzuo has been deepening tourism cooperation with ASEAN countries, and working with them to jointly create cross-border tourism routes and tourism brands. These efforts will help bring the tourism and cultural exchanges and cooperation between China and ASEAN to a new height.

Multiple measures taken to advance the development of cultural tourism

Developing cultural tourism represents an important step to move forward with the Belt and Road Initiative. To this end, Chongzuo has adopted a number of measures to drive the development of cultural tourism on the basis of its exceptional location advantages and multiple preferential policies, in an effort to build the city into an internationally famous destination for cultural tourism and holiday making.Feng Bo, Director of the Chongzuo Tourism Development Commission, said that to deliver a sound performance in this work, the Chongzuo municipal government has taken four new measures: First, building a distinctive tourism brand;second, improving tourism services and public facilities;third, strengthening tourism promotion and publicity; and fourth, developing new methods of capital operation.

“In addition to these four measures, it is also necessary for Chongzuo to enhance connectivity infrastructure construction,” he said, adding that better infrastructure would help improve Chongzuo’s tourism environment, and add new momentum to its cultural tourism development.

Exploration of new ways to develop cross-border tourism

Transnational self-drive tour where one can go anytime he wishes is increasingly popular among travellers. It provides a new option for Chinese tourists to travel abroad, and has become a new highlight of tourism between China and Vietnam. As all-around progress is being made in the construction of China-Vietnam international tourism cooperation zones and innovation of ways of tourism cooperation, a massive wave of cross-border travel is sweeping across the whole city of Chongzuo.

In recent years, thanks to the steady advancement in the connectivity infrastructure construction under the Belt and Road Initiative, Chongzuo has initiated an array of cross-border tourism projects, such as cross-border selfdrive and biking tours. According to Lu Wenzhan, Director General of the Chongzuo Transport Bureau, with a total highway length of 7,549 kilometers, Chongzuo has set up a full-coverage and well-connected highway network.This development model that gives priority to transport construction has helped Chongzuo upgrade its transport facilities for tourism development, and meet the economic and political needs.

Pingxiang, a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Chongzuo, launched China-Vietnam cross-border biking tours in 2015. Afterwards, it has organized cross-border self-drive tours for many times, and rolled out several selfdrive routes. On June 1, 2018, through the joint efforts of related departments of both countries, a cross-border selfdrive route linking China’s Guilin and Vietnam’s Ha Long was opened. On that basis, China and Vietnam said that they would continue to strengthen communication for the early launch of another self-drive route between Pingxiang and the Vietnamese province of Lang Son in the second half of 2018. At present, Pingxiang has created a cross-border travel route that connects Pingxiang, Vietnam’s Hanoi,Ha Long Bay, Hue, Da Nang, Nha Trang, and Saigon, and introduced cross-border self-drive routes in Vietnam and via it to another four ASEAN countries, including Laos,Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar.