The 2012 Sichuan Flower Ecotourism Festival will start in 20 sites simultaneously in Southwest China's Sichuan province on March 22.

The sites include Hanyuan and Anyue counties and Mianzhu city, according to the Sichuan Flower Ecotourism Society.

As Sichuan has strived to return arable land to forests in recent years, it boasts vast expanses of pear, peach, lemon and pomegranate blossom as well as camellia and pomegranate which are the destination for spring outing.

Hanyuan, which has a contiguous area of 6,667 hectares of pear flowers, is the typical representative of Sichuan's ecotourism, offcials from the society said..

Sichuan whose earnings from ecotourism were nearly 31 billion yuan ($4.9 billion) last year received 170 million visitors in 2011, they said.