China Focus: 'Smart' Hangzhou braces for National Day holiday after G20 Summit

The eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou will display its smart and civilized nature to tourists during the National Day holiday, after stunning the world at the G20 Summit in early September. Thomas Derksen was amazed at how easy and convenient his Hangzhou tour was. "I have been to more than 30 countries around the world, but none of them has a city like Hangzhou. You can even use mobile payment services at snack stalls beside the road," the German tourist said. Saturday marks China's National Day and the beginning of a week-long public holiday. This year, Hangzhou is expected to receive 15 million tourists during the holiday, a year-on-year increase of 15 percent, according to the Hangzhou municipal commission for tourism development. According to a report jointly released on Tuesday by Didi Chunxing and Alitrip, the West Lake in Hangzhou is expected to be the hottest destination in China during the holiday. Dubbed the world's largest mobile payment city, more than 98 percent of Hangzhou's taxis, over 95 percent of supermarkets and convenience stores, and more than 50 percent of restaurants in Hangzhou have access to mobile payment services. With smartphones, tourists in Hangzhou can use mobile payment service when shopping, dining, or calling a cab. As of Saturday, free WiFi has covered the picturesque West Lake area, according to the lake administration. Tourists can have access to the service at almost any spot around the lake. WiFi services are now even available on some of the city's buses. To provide convenience for tourists driving to Hangzhou, the city's urban management authority has come up with a mobile app, which drivers can use to check on the availability of the 34,000 parking spaces across the city. The urban management authority told Xinhua the app will have real-time parking data for more than 85 percent of the city's parking lots by the end of 2016. To encourage "green travel," Hangzhou has set up a public bicycle service system with 84,000 bicycles, providing service for about 310,000 people on average each day. "Compared with many other cities in the world, Hangzhou's cycle track is wonderful and can be found everywhere," said Tim Clancy, an Australian who has lived in Hangzhou for nearly six years. Since the end of August, to make renting a bicycle easier, the bicycle service system has launched a new function where tourists can just scan QR codes with a smartphone to rent a bicycle. On Saturday, a group of volunteers joined the "Non-smoking West Lake" campaign and walked around the lake picking up cigarette ends. Zhu Jialei, an organizer of the campaign, said the volunteers' action will show tourists that the G20 summit has not only brought more tourists to Hangzhou but also a greater civility. Chinese President Xi Jinping has underscored the implementation of the nation's new development concepts of innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared growth. During a July trip to northwestern China, he said the new development concepts -- proposed in the country's roadmap for social and economic development for 2016-2020 -- shall be integrated throughout the entire process of China's social and economic development and its efforts to build a "moderately prosperous society" in an all-round way. Hangzhou's recent change reflects the city's effort to follow the new development concepts, said Yang Jianhua, a sociologist with Zhejiang Provincial Academy of Social Sciences. Source : XINHUA