Annual peach blossom festival to start in Xizang next week

An annual peach blossom festival is expected to start in the city of Nyingchi, Southwest China's Xizang autonomous region, on March 27, an official said Thursday.

This year's festival will feature wild peach groves, performances and a fireworks display, Yu Xiaojuan, deputy head of Nyingchi's tourism development bureau, said at a meeting for promoting the festival.

The activities will help build Nyingchi into an international ecological tourist destination and improve the economic, cultural and social benefits of the city's tourism industry, Yu said.

"Tourism has become a distinctive industry with the best development quality, economic benefits and development potential in Nyingchi," she added.

For COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control, this year's event prepared sufficient epidemic prevention materials and an effective emergency response plan.

Last year's festival started on April 2. Affected by the epidemic, the city saw the number of tourists received in the first half of 2020 down about 70 percent.

Yu said she expects this year's festival to see surging tourists and revenues compared with 2020.