Fairyland Zhangjiajie known to the world

How did Zhangjiajie grow from an unknown remote area to an internationally famous tourist city?

In 1981, photographer Chen Fuli from Hong Kong and photographer Chen Bo from Chinese mainland visited Dayong County. They climbed to the top of Huangshi Stockaded Village and took a series of sunset photographs, which were published in the magazine “China Travel”.

Surprisingly, the issue of the magazine sold well, so that Zhangjiajie which was once unknown to the outside world stunned the people overseas.

Over the decades, the landscapes of Zhangjiajie have constantly appeared on the world stage. In 1992, Wulingyuan Scenic and Historic Interest Area was listed on the “World Natural Heritage Site List” by UNESCO.

In 2004, Zhangjiajie Global Geopark was included in the first batch of World Geoparks. In 2008, Hollywood photographers took outdoor photography in Wulingyuan, which later became the prototype of “Pandora” in the Hollywood blockbuster “Avatar”.

In 2022, Zhangjiajie appeared in New York Times Square three times, and it had said “Hi” to international friends on the screen of Times Square many times before that.

Even in these days of convenient travel, if you ask how long it takes to get to Zhangjiajie, the guide will probably tell you at least 3 days, which is only enough to do a rough tour, and you can experience different landscapes in different scenic areas.

Zhangjiajie is growing popular with convenient transportation, perfect facilities and great order. The hospitality of the local people is felt by more tourists due to the improved facilities. Warm service was provided for stranded tourists during the epidemic.

It also takes the lead in promising that “tourists return goods for no reason within 30 days”. The saying thast “we owe owe Zhangjiajie a ticket” shows people’s concern about and love for Zhangjiajie.

On November 19, Zhangjiajie hosted a grand event: the first Hunan Tourism Development Conference.

Aiming at “organizing a conference to make a city thrive”, it has adhered to the concept of “looking beyond tourism for tourism” to promote the project construction for the conference.

For Zhangjiajie, it was far more than the upgrading of tourism resources. It expected great changes from all aspects. Zhangjiajie has comprehensively implemented various actions to accelerate project construction, upgrade appearances, improve tourism recovery and increase efforts to attract investment.

The construction of 110 key projects are expected to be completed within the year, with an annual planned investment of 7.809 billion yuan.

During the preparation for conference, Zhangjiajie received direct support from provincial units for 219 projects with a total investment of 36.466 billion yuan, and 161 policies for the conference from 56 provincial units, which are not exclusive to Zhangjiajie. “Organizing a conference to make a city thrive” will become a regular task of Hunan Province to boost development confidence of all cities in Hunan.