This scenic spot will be free to all Chinese tourists, including residents from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, while foreign visitors still need to pay 105 yuan ($17) for a ticket.
The maximum daily number of tourists will be restricted to 40,000. The dam currently receives an average of 1.8 million tourists every year, reported the Xinhua News Agency.
Chinese visitors can either make a reservation online or use their ID cards for admission on the spot.
"This decision's aim is to let more Chinese people learn about the project and witness the great achievements China has made since the reform and opening-up," said Sha Xianhua, a deputy general manager of the China Three Gorges Corporation.
Ticket prices for the dam have been controversial in recent years as they increased from 30 yuan to 105 yuan.
The corporation officially responded in a document delivered to the media in the press conference, saying that "since the construction of the dam was at a critical point in previous years, we were unable to fulfill tourists' demand in consideration of their safety. "
"This move will bring an end to years of disputes and can also stimulate the local tourism industry," Liu Simin, a tourism expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
However, Liu said it would not set a precedent for other popular scenic spots, since ticket revenue from such sites typically goes into local governments' pockets, and local authorities are disinclined to give up revenue sources in an age of squeezed budgets.
The designated scenic area around the dam, a 5A-Class tourism destination, has been a backbone of the local tourism industry since 2007, according to the dam corporation's official website.
By Cao Siqi Source: Global Times
25-26/9/14
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China's Three Gorges dam "breaks world hydropower record" ...
ΑπάντησηΔιαγραφήChina's Three Gorges dam has broken the world record for annual hydroelectric power production, more than a decade after it became the world's largest power plant, its operator said.
The Yangtze river power station generated 98.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2014, the Three Gorges Dam Corporation said in a statement, topping the 2013 production from the Brazilian-Paraguayan Itaipu dam.
The amount of electricity generated by the Three Gorges plant is roughly equivalent to burning 49 million tonnes of coal, said Thursday's statement, thereby preventing 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. But concerns have been raised about the environmental and human cost of the huge project, which saw more than a million people moved before it opened around a decade ago.
Thousands remain in poverty, and China's government in 2012 made a rare admission that the treatment of migrants relocated for the dam was still an "urgent problem". Campaign groups say it has damaged biodiversity, threatening the critically endangered Yangtze river dolphin.
The Three Gorges dam is the world's largest power plant by installed capacity with 22,500 megawatts, a third more than Itaipu, on the Parana river.
- CNA/ac
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/china-s-three-gorges-dam/1564494.html
2/1/15