Baotu Spring, a famous scenic spot in Jinan, capital of east China`s Shandong Province.

Hundreds of springs crisscross the landscape of Jinan, winning it the popular nickname of the "City of Springs."

Springs have their appeal; while in recent years, Jinan has been publicizing its time-honored histories and cultures to hold more appeal among tourists.

Tanks to its efforts, the city found a ranking among China’s top 10 tourist cities in 2010 in an Internet poll, which drew 5.64 million responses worldwide.

However, the city is not going to sit idly on its laurels, a local official said. Jinan is planning to provide new facilities to add more competitiveness to the city’s tourist attractions, including a culture and art center, a creativity park and an animation park, according to the city’s culture bureau.

The city will also renovate some old tourism sites, such as Furong Street with all its classical style houses and Hero Mountain Culture Market.

In addition, Jinan will hold the biennial Chinese Art Festival, scheduled to open in 2013, and in 2015, the 22nd Historiography Congress, which is held every five years and is expected to draw more than 2,000 historians. The two cultural events are expected to boost Jinan’s cultural profile. .

Jinan plans to allocate about 40 billion yuan ($61.2 million) to the preparation of these two events to improve the city’s culture parks.

A 150,000 square meters Jinan Cultural Center is under construction and is expected to be ready for use by the end of 2012.

The city will also construct a creativity industrial park in the eastern part of the city, a tourism park in the south, an art park in the west, and a folk culture park in the north.

Jinan plans to utilize its natural resources to sharpen the city’s competitive edge. Tourism facilities are being built in Daming Lake Park, Baotu Spring Park, Tiger Spring Park and Wulong Spring Park to promote its "City of Springs" reputation.

Jinan expects its culture business to bring in 70 billion yuan ($10.8 billion) in revenue by 2015.

By Zhao Ruixue (China Daily Shandong Bureau)