Hangzhou, the capital of East China's Zhejiang Province famed for its rich natural beauty and cultural heritage, has mapped out a massive plan to boost 10 key promising segments of the city's characteristic industry over the next five years, in a bid to attract more domestic and overseas tourists.

Located 180 km from Shanghai, Hangzhou has a subtropical monsoon type climate with four quite distinct seasons. The plan envisages positioning the city as an "international scenic tourist metropolis", and aims to make it "oriental capital of leisure" by boosting the leisure and creative industries by 2011.

Below are some of the key highlights of the 10 promising segments.

Food and cuisine

Hangzhou has long been reputed as a city of gourmet food with a long history of cuisine culture. Hangzhou cuisine focuses on fresh materials, elaborate processing and natural flavor, with attention accorded to color, smell, taste and shape.

There are over 19,000 restaurants in Hangzhou with about 180,000 employees. These include the established and reputed Louwailou and Zhiweiguan, while restaurants serving new-style Hangzhou food include Zhangshengji and Huazhongcheng.

Hangzhou-style food is undergoing a revival. Drawing upon the best of Chinese cuisines, its fame has spread throughout the nation, and has helped build the reputation of Hangzhou as the "City of Gourmet Food".

Hangzhou features a variety of dishes with local flavors, such as Dongpo Pork, West Lake Carp in Sweet and Sour Sauce, Shelled Shrimps with Dragon Well Green Tea, Beggar's Chicken and Quick-fried Prawns.

Over the next five years, the city aims to launch a series of campaigns, including designing special gourmet travel routes and holding influential seminars on food and beverage, to make Hangzhou cuisine a national brand within and outside China.

By 2011, Hangzhou will be home to over 80 large-scale food and beverage enterprises, each with an operational area of over 1,000 sq m, as well as 25 large-scale restaurant chains.

Teahouse

Dragon Well Tea is regarded as the national tea and Hangzhou also enjoys the reputation of being a "City of Tea".

The most famous teahouse street in Hangzhou is located near the West Lake scenic area, which is a good place to enjoy the city's tea culture. More than 10 teahouses such as Wind Lotus, New Bamboo, Ziyi Hall and Men'er, all with their own typical characters, can be found there.

By June 2006, the city had over 1,000 teahouses, with 650 registered inside urban Hangzhou, the rest being rural ones opened by farmers living nearby.

The local tourism authority plans to hold a series of tea-related promotional campaigns to further popularize tea culture among its residents.

Over the next five years, the city will train 250 teahouse operators annually to further raise their service standards, and they will be offered certificates upon completion of the training courses.

Performance arts

Hangzhou has 18 professional art troupes and 69 private performance groups. The most famous among them without doubt is the Hangzhou Gold Coast Theater Entertainment Co, a leading performance brand across China.

Launched 10 years ago, the performance giant has launched nine chain enterprises and 11 theatres to date, with annual viewer numbers exceeding 2.5 million. "Night of Hangzhou", a show designed specially for foreign tourists, provides an in-depth insight into and depiction of the rich Hangzhou culture.

According to pending plans, the city's art and performance administration will strive to introduce more famous foreign performing artists, and launch a city-level performance administrative office to better coordinate large-scale shows.

Sanitarium and rehabilitation

With its abundant resources of scenic hills and forests, Hangzhou has always been one of the national centers for sanitarium and rehabilitation services since 1949. There are 11 registered rehabilitation institutions within Hangzhou, receiving over 100,000 people from across the nation each year.

The city will seek to enhance links between high-end hotels and hospitals in future to provide high-quality rehabilitation services to tourists.

It will also seek to develop high-end spa services inside its famous Xixi National Wetland Park, as well as hotspring sanitarium services at the Daqinggu scenic area.

Healthcare

The manufacture of traditional Chinese medicine has been a long-established industry of the city. In 2006, Hangzhou's 68 pharmaceutical enterprises realized a sales volume of 6 billion yuan, accounting for 80 percent of the province's total.

Hangzhou plans to undertake a citywide survey of its healthcare-related industry, and launch a standardized quality system by 2010.

It also wants to incorporate traditional Chinese medicare service into tour-route designs, and launch standard health assessment and healthcare centers in large-scale hospitals in the city.

Cosmetics industry

Kongfengchun, a national brand launched in Hangzhou in 1862, was China's first cosmetics product. Hangzhou has a long history of manufacturing cosmetics-related products. In 2006, the city's 96 cosmetics manufacturers realized sales revenue worth 5 billion yuan, contributing 1.2 billion yuan in taxes. Sales outlets of world-famous cosmetics brands such as Lancome, Estee Lauder and Shiseido can be found in the shopping malls of Hangzhou. For some brands, sales revenue earned in Hangzhou has remained No 1 in the nation for several years, even surpassing that of Shanghai.

Over the next five years, the city will further integrate its current resources and launch a high-level cosmetics production base to boost cosmetics OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) production.

It also hopes to revive the extinct Kongfengchun brand and launch a special research team for the revival of Kongfengchun cosmetics production, making it a representative brand of the city's cosmetics sector.

Besides, the city will support the development of 30 beauty enterprises, encouraging them to further enhance cooperation with famous national and international cosmetics brands.

Silk and costumes

Hangzhou's silk and costumes industry currently earns an annual industrial revenue of 30 billion yuan, employing over 120,000 people.

The Wulin business circle, comprising Wulin Square and surrounding areas, is a dense concentration of departmental stores and shopping centers, and the liveliest area in Hangzhou.

It is also the source of Hangzhou-style women's garments, which features more than 200 garment brands, representing the latest fashion and style in women's clothing in the city. The entire street is mainly devoted to women's garments, supported by some cafes, restaurants and beauty parlors, making it an ideal place for leisure and shopping.

By 2010, the Wulin business circle will be enlarged to create a world-famous shopping area for brands.

As for the city's traditional silk industry, Hangzhou's commercial authority is considering sponsoring a high-level international silk symposium by inviting experts to discuss development trends in the global silk industry.

Besides the above seven key areas, the city will also focus on the development of its sports and leisure, maternity and baby-related products, and folk art industries over the next five years.