Beijing offers 300,000 free tickets for scenic spots

With the Chinese New Year of the tiger coming, Beijing will offer mobile phone users nationwide 300,000 free "electronic entrance tickets" to nearly 60 scenic spots such as the Summer Palace, Badaling Great Wall and Happy Valley. Starting February 3, residents can participate in ticket-related lucky draws through the Internet.

Between February 3 and February 12, tourists can visit the official website of the Beijing Tourism Administration (BTA) and visit the special webpage to participate in the lucky draw. 30,000 tickets will be distributed per day. 1 mobile phone number is eligible for only 1 entry and each tourist may select up to the maximum of 3 scenic spots. The system will select the winners from random lucky draw each day and send the "electronic entrance tickets" to their mobile phones using short or multimedia messages within 48 hours after the list of the winners is made public.

Winners may exchange their electronic tickets for entrance tickets at the scenic spots during their opening hours between February 14 and March 15. Winners can forward their short or multimedia messages with a 2-dimensional barcode which can only be used once to another mobile phone.

Sun Weijia, deputy director of the BTA, said Beijing will distribute a total of 1 million free entrance tickets to domestic and foreign tourists in 2010.

In addition, Beijing will conduct activities of "promoting travelers to tour Beijing by offering 100, 200, 300 and 400-yuan discounted hotel rates" in order to enable more ordinary residents to enjoy star-class hotel services.

By People's Daily Online