Guilin government holds a press conference on July 8 to outline progress towards Guilin's ambition to become an international tourist resort. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A press conference was held in Lingui district, Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region on July 8, to outline the work and construction progress of Guilin's efforts to build itself into an international tourist resort.

Six first-class key projects in Guilin will be promoted this year, namely the application by Guilin Longji terraces for 5A scenic spot status; the construction of signs and signage systems on eight travel routes; the construction of "Guilin Youli," the tourism commodity brand of Guilin; the construction of Guilin Opera House; the renovation of an urban gift exhibition center; and the construction of Guilin Xianyuan Health Industrial Park.

Since the beginning of this year, a total of 190 cultural tourism projects have been examined and approved, with a total investment of 27 billion yuan ($3.86 billion). Projects mainly focus on the construction of tourism transportation infrastructure, such as strengthening connection between highways and important tourist attractions and improving transportation infrastructure in rural tourist areas, as well as the promotion of tourist scenic routes, self-driving routes, daily travel routes and rural tourist routes.

Guilin will promote links between tourism and culture, sports, and agriculture, implementing a batch of cultural tourism projects, sports tourism projects, and pastoral tourism projects.

The city also introduced incentives to promote the development of cultural tourism and support the recovery of cultural and tourism enterprises.

Next, online and offline tourism promotion events will be carried out and cooperation with domestic e-commerce platforms will be strengthened to stimulate tourist spending.