China plans to make long march to red tourism sites easier with new roads

China will build over 2,000 kilometers of new roads over the next three years to facilitate tourism to sites associated with the country’s revolutionary past, media reported Thursday.

A total of 126 road programs around scenic spots will be initiated to boost red tourism, 90 percent of which will be built in central and western regions of the country, according to the 2017- 2020 red tourism scheme released by the Ministry of Transportation.

The road projects will cover 28 provinces and regions stretching a total distance of 2,442 kilometers, China Central Television reported.

The plan is for all red scenic spots in the country to be connected with tertiary highways by 2020 and for half of the tourist sites to be connected to nearby traffic networks through secondary roads.

Around 5 billion visits have been paid to China’s red scenic spots as of 2016, 60 percent of which were made by young teens, China National Tourism Administration data shows. The administration did not specify over what period this data was collected.

The administration expects the annual number of visits paid to red tourism sites to rise to 1.5 billion by 2020.

Red tourism has long been supported by the government. The Ministry of Finance spent 1.55 billion yuan ($ 228 million) to support red tourism in 2016. Famous red tourism sites include the museum established to commemorate the Communist Party of China’s first national congress in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province and Shaoshan, Hunan Province, birthplace of late Chairman Mao Zedong.