Culture and Tourism

Modern Beijing is a city gifted with some of the world's rarest and most interesting World Heritage List sites. These sites dot the municipality's landscape from the centre of the urban metropolis, where they are joined by new, gleaming skyscrapers and wide boulevards and expressways, to the mountains surrounding the city with their trees, thousand-year-old villages, ancient temples and wildlife.

But the first thing almost any serious visitor to Beijing will want to discuss over a pint of beer or a cup of coffee will be the city's winding alleyways called hutong. Lined with traditional Beijing houses called siheyuan (courtyard homes) that lay secreted behind intricately designed gates and walls, the “hutong culture” or “the courtyard culture,” represent some of the best that remains of the civil life of old Beijing.

Though many of the inner city's dilapidated courtyards have been replaced by modern high-rises, the lovers of the hutong culture have prevailed upon the ancient capital city's leaders to better protect the remaining hutong, and those voices have been heard. They are now protected as cultural and historical relics, while those who want leave them and move to a more modern apartment elsewhere in the city are being assisted in their moves.

Along with the city's great World Heritage sites, such as the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace or the Temple of Heaven, the hutong that will remain will remind visitors and scholars of the depth of the cultural experience that was ancient Beijing, once and again a great city of the world.

In 2005, Beijing received 3.63 million incoming tourists, an increase of 15 percent more than in 2004.  Of these, 3.12 million were foreign nationals, an increase of 16.2 percent; compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan accounted for 513,000, an increase of 8.2 percent. Foreign-exchange earnings from tourism rose to US$3.62 billion, an increase of 14.2 percent. There were also 517,000 outbound tourists, an increase of 0.7 percent. The city also received 125 million domestic tourists, an increase of 4.6 percent, with earnings from domestic tourism rising to 130 billion yuan (US$16.25 billion), an increase of 13.5 percent.

During the city's Tenth Five-Year Plan, many lesser-known cultural relics, after having been repaired and renovated, could better serve Beijing's growing tourist influx. In 2000-02, the Beijing Municipal Government appropriated 330 million yuan (US$41.25 million) for the repair and renovation of cultural relics under municipality- or higher-level protection. The initiative attracted 3.6 billion yuan (US$450 million) in auxiliary investment from urban districts, rural counties and other institutions that were closely involved.  Ninety-eight cultural relics were repaired and renovated; about 6,000 households were relocated and more than 100,000 square metres of structures with significant cultural value were vacated so they could be repaired or upgraded.

In January 2003, the municipal government launched the People's Olympics Cultural Relics Protection Plan. According to the plan, 600 million yuan (US$75 million) was to be appropriated over a span of five years to repair and renovate the city's cultural and historical relics on a large scale. Priority was assigned to the restoration of the basic layout and features of Beijing as a 3,000-year-old cultured and historical city.

By the end of 2005, 92 cultural relics had been renovated or were under renovation. Of these, the Deling tomb at the Ming Tombs, the Temples for Emperors of Successive Dynasties, the Yongdingmen Rostrum, the Changchun Temple and the Pudu Temple were opened to the general public following their renovation. Since 2003, Beijing’s six World Heritage List sites have been undergoing comprehensive repairs and renovations. Work had been finished on the renovation of the Wumen gate and the Wuying Hall at the Forbidden City, the Qinian Hall at the Temple of Heaven, the Great Wall at the Huanghuacheng and Gubeikou sections. The Kangling and Deling tombs at the Ming Tombs complex have been repaired. The Peking Man Relics at Zhoukoudian had been reinforced and consolidated. To improve cultural and historical relics protection during the initial stage of infrastructural construction across the city, authorities surveyed and prospected 5.12 million square metres of land, and they excavated and sorted out 1,200 tombs and 54,000 square metres of relics. Archaeological prospecting and excavations were conducted at the municipal works along Liangguang Lu, the Yinzezhou residential projects in Yanqing County, the Winter Palace relics, the Olympic venues at Wukesong and at all urban light-rail construction sites, with a large number of precious cultural relics unearthed.

During the city's Tenth Five-Year Plan, Beijing received 14.6 million incoming tourists, and the foreign exchange earnings from the tourist sector grew to US$14.8 billion (US$1.85 billion), increasing by 21.3 percent and 21.4 percent more than under the Ninth Five-Year Plan. The city received 560 million domestic visitors and earned 496.87 billion yuan (US$62.11 billion) tourist incomes under the tenth plan, increases of 26.3 percent and 1.3 times more than during the ninth.