BEIJING – The coronavirus pandemic has struck tourist sites in China, as in all other countries, but one option has proven its value: “red tourism” to sites traditionally vital to the Communist Party.
Earlier this month, the correspondent visited Jinggangshan City in Jiangxi Province, a leading “revolutionary holy site” located two and a half hours’ flight from Beijing. It was here that Mao Zedong, the father of fashionable China, organized the peasants and established the first bastion of armed struggle in the last 1920s.
The plane is almost 80% and the airline no longer needed empty seats of social distance between passengers. China has contained more or less the coronavirus outbreak since July, so there are virtually no restrictions on domestic travel.
The team served a meal in general flight, flying to Jinggangshan no other than those prior to the pandemic.
Jinggangshan is approximately another hour from the airport by car, a domain surrounded by mountains exceeding 1,000 to 2,000 meters in the sky. This correspondent checked into a hotel within walking distance of the shopping district. All units closest to the city centre booked.
“The rooms were recently filled by 70% to 80%,” said one table worker in a jovial conversation. “These were basically study groups. It’s rare to have a guest alone. “
The former prevent the Jinggangshan Revolution Museum, a design that projects splendor and magnificence. A fleet of giant tour buses parked near the museum, leaving teams of dozens of people.
Tourists wore Red Army uniforms, the army wing of China’s first communists, and the forerunner of the People’s Liberation Army. They covered their bodies with wallets published with Mao’s image or slogans such as “Serve the People. “
Groups belonging to companies and organizations dress in uniform for commemorative photographs.
Tickets were divided into one for teams and for regular visitors. Like a long winding line formed at the head of the group, no one expected individuals at the front.
The door manager looked when this correspondent presented his passport.
“He’s the first foreigner to come here since the start of the new coronavirus epidemic,” the doorman said.
Mao’s old apartment in Jinggangshan was also a major attraction. The narrow, dark rooms served him as a bedroom and office. Mao worked late at night, according to an explanatory note. It is said that this is where Mao formupast owed his remarkable strategy of using the countryside to surround and capture the big cities.
Jinggangshan, which has a population of just 170,000, received 19. 32 million travelers last year, according to city statistics. Traffic rose by approximately 5% through 2018 and tourism revenues totaled Y 16 billion ($2. 36 billion).
Due to the epidemic, the number of visitors this year was drastically reduced to around May. But tourism has noticed an impressive recovery. What was once a deficient mountain village has become a prosperous destination thanks to the official approval of the Communist Party as a Red Tourist Site.
Central government began inspiring tourism to revolutionary holy sites around 2004. More than three hundred destinations have been designated, adding Jinggangshan, the neighboring city of Ruijin Jiangxi Province and shaanxi Province city, Yan’an. A total of 660 million others visited these sites in 2018.
Initially, the purpose of the program was to revive the rural economy. The tone changed to patriotic education once President Xi Jinping came to power.
Xi spoke about red tourism in a 2016 speech that marked the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party and suggested listeners lose sight of the “true color” contained in the prayer.
“You can not embrace a genuine schooling without understanding the difficulties faced through the revolutionary generation,” he said. Xi.
Officials cautioned that Xi was unhappy with the way red tourism had focused on entertainment and recreation that prioritized profits; later, the purely touristy facets of the revolutionary sites would have been downplayed in favor of more time devoted to teaching.
The Communist Party of China celebrates its centennial in July 2021. Just as the party was about to renew its efforts to inspire red tourism, the pandemic hit hard and disrupted travel. through corporations and teams connected to the Communist Party.
Amid frictions with the United States, Chinese leaders have become accustomed to driving the struggles of communist ancestors, with the obvious consolidation of their unifying authority.
Red tourism aims to make two movements of a single stone, through the loyalty to the party and the reactivation of tourism. From what was noticed on this trip, the strategy turns out to be working.
At the Revolution Museum, other young men dressed in Red Army uniforms stopped in front of an exhibition to express their admiration.
“These times were difficult,” one spectator said.
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