Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in real life

Fans of Tim Burton's film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory may have been impressed by the film's fantastic chocolate world. Now, a real chocolate world will open in Jiaxing, Eastern China's Zhejiang province.

On May 21, journalists from different domestic Internet media sites visited Smile Foods Co, a chocolate enterprise located in Jiashan county of Jiaxing, where a chocolate amusement park will be opened in October.

As a Zhejiang provincial key project, the chocolate park was approved on Dec 6, 2011, and was financed with 500 million yuan ($80.05 million) by Smile Group. In addition to the output of high quality chocolate totaling 20,000 tons per year, the so-called Smile Chocolate Amusement Park will be the first industry tourism project themed on chocolate culture in China.

Located in a tourist resort, the park will set up a factory, a leisure zone, a wedding area, a recreation area, a tourism service area, a cocoa garden, and a fruit and flower garden. All of the areas will have a chocolate theme. Along the factory’s advanced assembly line, a transparent observation channel has been build to enable visitors to observe how chocolate is produced from raw materials to the final product.

Among the beautiful landscapes, Smile will exploit the chocolate theme and build a chocolate production base; special industry tourism demonstration base; and culture creative industry base that incorporates chocolate production, R&D, exhibition, experience, culture and recreation, according to Mo Xuefen, deputy general manager of Smile Group.

The chocolate factory tour was part of a scheduled trip to Jiaxing by Internet media sites. The tour is themed on "Zhejiang Merchants' Entrepreneurship and Innovation" and lasts from May 21 to 23. It is an initiative of the publicity department of the CPC Jiaxing municipal committee and Jiaxing municipal government’s cooperation and exchange office.