At 14:10 December 31, Stone Forest Scenic Area welcomed the 4,000,000th tourist. So far the yearly tourist reception of Stone Forest Scenic Area exceeded four million person times for the first time, realizing historical development.

The lucky 4,000,000th tourist 

It is learned that since 1931 when Stone Forest Scenic Area was open to public, the number of tourists received has been rising continuously through more than 80 years’ development of hardships. In 1999, the yearly tourist reception of Stone Forest Scenic Area exceeded one million person times for the first time; from 2004 to 2010, the yearly tourist reception exceeded two million person times continuously for seven years; in 2011, the yearly reception exceeded three million person times for the first time; and in 2015 the yearly reception exceeded four million person times for the first time.

Granted the “Golden Key” of the scenic area to be free of ticket life long 

The continuous increase in the number of tourists to Stone Forest Scenic Area is closely related to the years’ efforts made by Shilin County in enhancing tourism transformation and upgrading. As a marking pole for tourism development of Kunming, Shilin County has accelerated the transformation of tourism from sightseeing tourism to the compound tourism integrating sightseeing, leisure, vacationing, health improvement, scientific investigation and conference & exhibition. With the continuous improvement of tourist service facilities, the tourism of Stone Forest has gradually transformed from a simple scenic area to a global scenic area. In 2014, Shilin County innovatively conducted business invitation and tourist introduction work by organizing eight business invitation and tourist introduction branches to publicize and promote Stone Forest in the main provincial capitals and major cities of China. In this way, it has realized total coverage of tourism marketing centers in each province of China, continuously improving the popularity of Stone Forest, further upgrading the tourism brand value and promoting the stable growth of tourism economy.

Tourist Center 

In recent years, Stone Forest has strengthened the reconstruction and upgrading of the scenic area closely centered on the goal of tourism transformation and upgrading, realizing the separation of tourist area and service area. It strengthened project construction and continuously improved tourism service facilities. During the “12th Five-Year” period, the Management Bureau of the scenic area moved the buildings and structures negatively impacting the view of the scenic area including Yunlin Hotel, industry and commerce administration of the scenic area and Wukeshu Village, and it carried out ecological restoration. Such projects were completed and put into service as the leisure park in front of the Greater and Lesser Stone Forest Scenic Area, the new entrance of the scenic area and the reconstruction work of Huanlin Road. Tourist Center Transport Network was established and put into use, and the construction of Number 1 Yi Village and general movement of Wukeshu Village were basically completed. Reconstruction and upgrading work of Changhu Scenic Area and Dadieshui Scenic Area was carried out, basically constructing a tourist scenic spot of beautiful environment, special landscapes and complete service functions integrated into the international standard. Meanwhile, the pace of intelligent tourism was accelerated. Through the construction of geological site protection database, it collected and sorted out some basic spatial data, establishing the GIS data layers and corresponding primitive data of seven categories and 55 sub-categories. It also completed the construction of such digital scenic area systems as safeguarding system, internal traffic intelligence management system of the scenic area, portal website, entrance guard and ticket service system, geological museum display system, lightening prewarning system, touch screen inquiry and display system, LED display system and Dadieshui geological site protection system.

Ecological toilet

Large screen in the square of Tourist Center

The yearly tourism reception of Stone Forest Scenic Area exceeded four million person times, which marked that tourism of Stone Forest has entered a higher stage of development. In future, tourism of Stone Forest will transform from the expansion in quantity to the improvement in quality, from sightseeing tourism to recreational tourism and from scenic area tourism to global tourism. During the 13th Five-Year Period, Stone Forest will complete the reconstruction and upgrading work of Changhu and Dadieshui Scenic Areas and the county-level tourism supporting construction work. And it will conduct the construction of intelligent tourism project of Stone Forest and global tourism service center to develop Stone Forest into a characteristic international tourist resort and national demonstration area for global tourism. It is expected that by 2020, the yearly tourist reception of Stone Forest will exceed five million person times, the totally yearly reception of the whole county will exceed 10 million person times and the comprehensive revenue from tourism will exceed RMB10 billion.

Environmental protection sightseeing vehicles