The international port city, located near the Yellow Sea, is the eastern terminus of the New Eurasian Land Bridge and the proposed Northern East-West Freight Corridor.

Lianyungang was also one of the first 14 Chinese coastal cities to open up to the world, making it a center for industry, foreign trade and tourism in East China.

Lianyungang is also known as "the city of crystal" as Donghai County in Lianyungang contains 70 percent of the country's reserves of natural crystal and manufactures 80 percent of China's crystal products.

With the development of tourism in Lianyungang, Li Daoyong, who was a tour guide 20 years ago, now runs a travel agency.

"I felt it was the right time to start my business in 2003 when the city was listed as one of China's top tourism cities," says Li.

"When my agency started operations, we had just two workers. But my agency handled 50,000 visitors in 2017 after Huaguo Mountain was listed as a National 5A scenic spot (the highest rating for a Chinese tourist attraction) in 2016."

Speaking about his early days, he says he remembers that in 1998, the agency he worked for received only 700 visitors. Back in the 1970s, the city had only one hotel that received foreign visitors. But now it has 23 starred hotels with 2,529 rooms, including two five-star hotels.