Park aims to ride virtual reality boom
GUIYANG: Giant robots and futuristic cyberpunk castles rise out of lush mountain slopes on the outskirts of Guiyang, the capital of one of China’s poorest provinces.
Welcome to China’s first virtual reality theme park, which aims to ride a boom in demand for virtual entertainment that is set to propel tenfold growth in the country’s virtual reality market, to hit almost $NZ12.3 billion by 2020.
The 134hectare park in southwestern Guizhou province promises 35 virtual reality attractions, from shoot’emup games and virtual rollercoasters to tours with interstellar aliens of the region’s most scenic spots.
‘‘After our attraction opens, it will change the entire tourism structure of Guizhou province as well as China’s south west,’’ chief executive Chen Jianli said.
‘‘This is an innovative attraction, because it’s just different,’’ he said in an interview at the park, part of which is scheduled to open next February.
The $NZ2.2 billion Oriental Science Fiction Valley park is part of China’s thrust to develop new drivers of growth centred on trends such as gaming, sports and cuttingedge technology, to cut reliance on traditional industries.
In the push to become a centre of innovative tech, Guizhou is luring firms such as Apple Inc, which has sited its China data centre in the province, while the world’s largest radio telescope is sited in nearby Pingtang county. — Reuters