Tourists queue to enter a railway station in Guiyang, Guizhou Province. (Photo/Chinanews.com)
"BEAT THE HEAT" ECONOMY
While people suffer in the heat, some are cashing in on the extreme weather.
The southwestern province of Guizhou, for instance, is offering discounted tickets for tourism sites, airline tickets and highway passes to attract visitors to its cool mountainous areas. The province is also providing subsidies for chartered planes for group tours.
For Liang Chaojun, the government incentives mean more customers to his family inn in Jiuba Township, located on a 1,200-meter-high mountain in Guizhou's Zunyi City next to Chongqing Municipality, known as one of China's "four ovens" -- cities known for their steamy summer temperatures.
The township boasts 30 tourist sites, 1,383 family inns and 78 hotels, serving about 100,000 tourists from Chongqing each year.
"In Guizhou, tourists can enjoy the amazing Huangguoshu Waterfalls or stand in the shade of bamboo forests," said Wang Wenxue, a local tourism official.
According to a joint report released this year by the China Tourism Academy and the public service center under the China Meteorological Administration, more than 300 million tourists in China take tours to escape heat waves each summer. To meet demand, the China National Tourism Administration issued a circular in June seeking tours and travel destinations for summer tours.
"Now we can just stay at home to make money instead of going to big cities to find jobs," Liang said.
