IN Xingyi City in Guizhou Province, Wanfenglin Scenic Area is now drowned in a sea of beautiful and golden Chinese cole flowers, which is now bringing in a large number of tourists. “The sea of flowers just looks amazing,” said a tourist from Taiwan. “Riding bikes along the trails amid the flowers, I feel like part of a traditional Chinese ink-wash painting.” According to the company that runs the scenic area, from Feb. 25 to March 5, about 80,000 visitors came to admire the flowers, twice as many as in the same period last year. There are also “flower day tours” in many other parts in China, including Yunnan, Sichuan, Chongqing, Guangxi and Guangdong. But Xingyi is said to be the place where Chinese cole flowers blossom first, which is one of the reasons why the flower tours there are flourishing. To make the experience truly unforgettable, people in Guizhou have come up with many new products for tourists and provide a wide range of special offers associated with flower tours. In the first quarter of 2017, Guizhou received about 145 million tourists, a year-on-year increase of 35.4 percent. Revenue exceeded 135 billion yuan (US$21 billion) from January to March last year, up 38.8 percent over the same period of 2016. Flower tours were a significant contributor to the boom. (SD-Agencies) | 