The Stone Forest Global Geopark saw 4 million visitors at 2:10 pm, Dec,31 2015, making a historical and huge leap.

the lucky 4 millionth visitor

The park was officially open to public in 1931. Visitors are increasingly growing after 80 years’ development. The park had 1 million visitors in 1999; during the period of 2004 to 2010, the annual visitors are over 2 million. In 2011 and 2014, the number of visitors is 3 million and 4 million respectively. 

The growing number of visitors is resulted from the park’s efforts in tourism transformation and upgrading in recent years. Served as a model of Kunming municipality tourism development, Shilin County accelerated tourism model and the sightseeing-oriented tourism gave way to integrated tourism involving sightseeing, leisure, vacation, health, science, conference and exhibition. The tourism facilities are greatly improved. In addition,” visitors-attracting work” had been carried out in 2014 and 8 visitors-attracting bureaus were established, which played a dominant role in promoting tourism marketing in many big cities and capital cities across China. Shilin tourism marketing centers are all around China, making Shilin known by more people, enhancing tourism brand, boosting local economy’s steady growth.

Stone Forest geopark carried out a lot of work with the aim of tourism transformation and park upgrading. Service areas are separated from sightseeing areas. At the same time, the projects construction was increased and tourism service facilities were completed. During the “Twelfth five-year" period, Yunlin Hotel, Branch of Industrial and Commercial Bureau, Wukeshu Village and other buildings having negative impact were relocated and made ecological restoration. Leisure park, new park entrance, ring road renovation project, new transportation network in the visitor center were completed and put into use. The ecological environment, sightseeing areas, service facilities in the Long Lake Scenic Area and the Grand Waterfall Scenic Area were greatly improved. “Intelligent Stone Forest” was accelerated and some basic data has been collected. GIS data layer and corresponding diagram including 7 categories and 55 sub-categories were established. The park also completed constructions as following: security system, intelligent traffic management system, web portal, entrance ticketing system, lightening warning system, touch screen display system, LED display system and the Grand Waterfall Scenic Area geological relics protection system. 

LED Screen in the Visitor Center

The Stone Forest Geopark has 4 million visitors, which means Shilin County’s tourism is on a higher level. In the coming years the park will complete tourism transformation from quantity to quality, from sightseeing-oriented tourism model to leisure tourism, from scenic area tourism to nation wide tourism. During the “13th five-year" period, local authorities will put emphasis on promoting the Long Lake Scenic Area and the Grand Waterfall Scenic Area and “Intelligent Stone Forest” project. We will try to achieve the goal of establishing an internationally renowned destination and China national demonstration tourism area. It is predicted that the park will have 5 million visitors and tourism comprehensive income will be 10 billion yuan in 2020.